Alisa III Chronicle: Sword and Knife
by DezoPenguin
Summary: A collection of Phantasy Star III stories featuring the characters of second generation hero Ayn.
1. Preface

_**Preface**_

Two factors went into my choice of Ayn rather than Nial for the second-generation protagonist in my stories. On the one hand, as I discussed in the preface to the Rhys stories as well as the author's note for "Love Is Not a Dream," I was strongly inclined to want to marry Maia with Rhys. Then, once that actually happened and I played into the second generation, I encountered my favorite character of the entire cast: Sari. In the first generation, Lena was pretty much next to useless as an Orakian female. Not only did her stats stink, but she was limited to knives and needlers up to Ceram Needlers (yep, apparently Laser and Royal needlers are for the boys only) so she couldn't even use decent weapons to make up for her statistics. When her daughter Sari entered the party, I was expecting more of the same.

It didn't _quite_ work out that way.

For those who don't know, Sari is the biggest badass character in the game. Although she cannot use techniques and is restricted to the standard crappy weapon choices for Orakian females, she has utterly massive statistics (which, incidentally, is a definite reversal of the usual trend, where an RPG character is a gamebreaker because they get to have ubergreat equipment). She has the highest HP in the party, the highest defense, the highest speed, and the highest attack power—basically, she makes two knife attacks each round and two enemies die, generally before anything else on either side has a chance to act.

Sari, truthfully, is the main protagonist of this generation of stories. The centerpiece of this generation is the "Power Topaz" pair of stories, "Steel and Stone" and "In Your Eyes I Find a Mirror." "Steel and Stone" is a four-parter. In addition, "Royal Gift" is a prequel to this generation which also features Sari. It'd be even worse—I had started a novella-to-novel-length fic which centered around the start of Lune's invasion and how the schemes by the Regent's Council in Landen led to Lena's death, the massive initial gains by Lune in the invasion, and Sari becoming the Queen of Landen (you do have to wonder, after all, how the daughter of the Princess of _Satera_ got to be the Queen of _Landen—_particularly since she didn't marry into the Landen royal family), but never finished it and so never posted it.

I'd also like to stop and take the time to mention a friend of mine from way back in the day, Neilast. She wrote a number of PSIII fics, which are still available on Hugues Johnson's rather comprehensive PSIII site, including stories which spend considerable time on Ayn's other romantic option, Lyle's daughter Thea. They're well worth checking out if you haven't already.

~X X X~

**GAME INFORMATION:** If Rhys marries Maia, the King of Cille abdicates his throne to Rhys and the second generation centers on Ayn, the Prince of Cille. After years of peace, suddenly new, powerful cyborgs assail the land. Cille and Shusoran cannot hope to hold out, so Rhys sends Ayn with Mieu and Wren to find the legendary land of Satellite, said to be a peaceful paradise where the people of the two cities can find refuge. However, the quest has barely begun, Ayn having only gotten so far as Rysel, when he receives a message that Cille is falling. Rushing back home, he finds Shusoran and Cille destroyed, and is told that the survivors took shelter in Aridia.

Ayn, Mieu, and Wren find the survivors of Cille and Shusoran, including Rhys, Maia, and Lyle, in the cave where Rhys found Wren in the first generation. However, it turns out that Thea, Lyle's daughter, was kidnapped by cyborgs! Lyle gives Ayn the Dragon Tear, which unlocks the eastern world of Draconia so Ayn can save her. Arriving in Draconia, Ayn first finds the Orakian city of Lensol, whose castle is locked up tight. He continues on to Endora, where a man tells him that he has managed to get the gate open—and that a captured princess was taken into Lensol castle. Ayn returns to Lensol and rescues Thea, then takes her back to Lyle.

Rescuing Thea was not only a good thing to do, but also useful plot-wise, it turns out. Despite the fact that no one knows where Satellite actually is, legends do say that the Power Topaz is the key to it, said Power Topaz is in the possession of Lena's daughter (now Queen of Landen), and that Thea had the Twins' Ruby, which unlocks the passage between Aridia and Landen. ("But wait!" the player cries. "I can just go back to Aquatica and use the Sapphire to travel to Landen from there!" Except that won't work, because that passage has been blocked by the troops of someone named Lune...)

Ayn, Mieu, Wren, and Thea travel to Landen and meet Lena's daughter Sari, who as usual has to be fought in order to be made to see reason (she suspects that the Layan-heavy party are spies for the above-mentioned Lune). One suspects crappy equipment was the only reason Ayn and friends win this one, because while Sari is willing to let Ayn use the Power Topaz, she insists on coming along to guard the thing and as I mentioned above she inflicts massive damage on any monster stupid enough to get near her. The complete party then travels to Draconia, where their progress is halted until a dragon appears and ferries them across to an otherwise unreachable island. This dragon turns out to be Lyle! Apparently, his family has always had the ability to transform into dragons, hence their title of "Dragon Knights." Unfortunately, Lyle dies of the wounds received in his earlier battles.

Despite their grief, the party presses on and finds the town of Techna on the island, and in Techna the revelations come fast and furious. Most significantly is that _Phantasy Star III_ takes place on board a giant spaceship, _Alisa III_, and that the seven "worlds" (of which the player has visited four at this point) are in fact domed habitable environments. Which explains why there are techno-themed passages between the domes as well as a weather control system. In addition, "Satellite" is just that, the artificial satellite which is the blue moon Azura. And far from being a place of peace, Azura is the source of the cyborg invasion plaguing the generation. Ayn, nonetheless, decides to press on, and on Azura comes face to face with the leader of that invasion, the cyborg Siren, who was apparently one of Orakio's generals during the Devastation War. A millenium ago, he was trapped on the moon when it was moved away from the _Alisa III_ (out of shuttle range), but when Rhys moved the moons back in the first generation, he was freed and immediately unleashed his considerable wrath on any Layans he could reach. Ayn and friends handily teach Siren the value of teamwork and cooperation between races but apparently the befriending was insufficiently forceful because he rushes off, vowing revenge.

With Azura now in the hands of the heroes, the people of Cille and Shusoran move there. His quest complete, Ayn can choose to marry Sari or Thea. While if it were up to me, I'd pick Sari in a heartbeat (which I'm not saying just because she reminds me of my _actual_ wife...well, that's not the only reason, at least), it makes for a better story if he picks Thea, so that's what will happen in my fanfiction.


	2. Royal Gift

The forester stopped in his tracks, the scowl on his face black enough to shatter rock. His halt was so sudden that the young squire following behind almost ran into him, then stumbled in the act of stopping and fell against the man's broad, cloaked back. The forester grunted with the impact, then half-turned and steadied the boy by firmly clamping a hand in the front of his collar.

"Blast it, Tonam, can't you even walk without crashing into people?"

"I'm sorry, Lukas, but you stopped so suddenly, and..."

Tonam's voice trailed off before the bearded, elder man's glare, but the forester could not similarly intimidate the leader of the little party, for all that she was but a year older than Tonam's fourteen.

"Why did you stop?" she snapped bluntly--but then, Princess Sari of Satera was never other than blunt. A tall girl with a pretty but sharp-featured face and brown hair pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail, she had been placed in command of the little patrol as part of her training in weaponcraft and leadership alike. Because of her youth, the veteran forester had been assigned to lend his experience to the girl, but Lukas's repeated impatience with the squire had steadily annoyed Sari.

It was the fourth and final member of the patrol who answered, saying mildly, "I believe that it was the smoke." Mira the technician, commander of the two small Gunbots that escorted the patrol, pointed towards the horizon, where several plumes rose into a cloud.

"It's coming from the village," Lukas agreed grimly. "This is trouble."

"Oh, no! Kestra!" Tonam exclaimed, as well he should, for he hailed from the village of Kestra, entering service as a soldier only after his mother's death. It was his local knowledge that had added him to this patrol.

"Let's go," Sari ordered. "I don't know what caused those fires, but whatever it was, the village could always use four more sets of hands."

They didn't quite run, but their travel was quicktime from that point. In just under an hour they'd reached the village. A couple of the wooden houses were already smoldering ruins, having burned down during the march. Another collapsed in on itself before their eyes in a great shower of crashing timbers and spraying sparks. Villagers ran to and fro, bearing buckets of water to extinguish flames and attempting to beat out the fires where they could still be controlled.

"Come on!" snapped the princess. She had a fearlessness about her that was part youth and part born of the knowledge of her own not inconsiderable abilities. "We have to help."

The four of them rushed into the town, diving in wherever the need took them, whether it be water-bearing or more direct acts of valor in fighting the flames. Sari herself found herself playing herdswoman, rushing into a burning barn and leading the panicked animals out to safety. By the time all the flames were out the four were black with smoke, clothes dirty and torn, and more than one burnt. Tonam had the worst injuries, which was by no means a surprise given his occasionally shaky coordination, and Sari gave him a dose of healing Monomate to treat his hurts.

There were injuries among the villagers as well, and deaths, too, more than a capable village should have suffered.

"Too many," Sari said grimly.

"Not all injuries from the fire, either, I'll wager," Lukas agreed with equal grimness.

"We'd better get the story. Hey! Where's the reeve of this village?" Sari called.

"I'm Varl, the reeve," said a big man in his forties with a ruddy face and ample paunch. "We appreciate the help all of you gave in our troubles, but just who are you to be barking orders in my village?"

"We're a royal patrol," Lukas said, "and this is the Princess Sari, Queen Lena's heir."

Dryly, Mira added, "I assume that you can see why she might be used to giving orders?"

Varl had the grace to look embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, your Highness; we--"

"Forget it," she dismissed the matter. Sari never stood on ceremony and never held it against anyone if they didn't knuckle under to her rank. Indeed, she often thought worse of people if they _did_. "Just tell me what's been happening here. How did so many of you come to be hurt, and how did the fire start?"

"Both of those questions have the same answer, your Highness--"

"Sari. I'll put up with that 'your Highness' crap at court, but not out here in the world."

The reeve gulped, and nervously mopped his brow, the handkerchief coming away with dark soot-stains. Inwardly, Sari groaned. She hadn't wanted to scare the man, just move him past the bowing and scraping so he could tell his tale concisely, but all it had really accomplished was to make him afraid of the anger of the heir to the throne. It was times like this that she really wished she'd been born a simple soldier instead of as royalty.

"Yes, yo--Sari, I mean. Kestra was attacked by a bandit, a Layan accompanied by monsters!"

One thousand years ago, the Layans and Sari's own Orakian people had fought a war of mutual hatred and devastation. The marriage of Rhys, Prince of Satera's neighbor kingdom of Landen, to a Layan princess from the world of Aquatica had opened a lot of people's eyes to the fact that the Layans weren't demons of legend but people. Layan merchants and travelers now were not an unknown sight in the towns of Landen and Satera.

Which didn't mean that Layans couldn't be criminals. That was also part of that "Layans are people too" analysis.

"You said he had monsters with him?"

"That's right. Three of them, like our local moos but dark blue in coloration."

"Fearmoos, then," Sari noted. She was familiar with the bestiary of almost all monster types in her own world and Aquatica alike. A moos was a humanoid creature, with a stocky torso, hoofed feet, and a long, muzzle-like head crowned with antlers. The more powerful fearmoos was often used as a guard creature by Layan rulers in Aquatica, for with the mysterious power they called "techniques," Layans could command the obedience of the monsters they bred, not unlike the way Orakians could build and command cyborgs with the technology left to them from the Devastation War.

This was especially important because of Orakio's Law and Laya's Law, twin edicts passed down to the warring peoples by their leaders before their final battle--orders not to kill each other. Those laws had nearly been bent out of shape, in Sari's opinion; custom agreed that it was fine for Layans to have monsters kill Orakians and for Orakians to have cyborgs kill Layans, just not to do it personally.

"He was a tall man with long blue hair and a gold cloak," the reeve continued. "He strolled into the village square, bold as brass, and demanded a ransom in meseta to spare us. The monsters used their Foi attacks against us, breathing fire! Several were hurt or killed and more than one building alight when we surrendered. We gave him whatever we could find, and he went in and out of several buildings himself, looting everything small and valuable he could lay hands on. It was nearly four thousand meseta he took from us, leaving not long before you came."

Sari offered her opinion of the bandit with a few choice words more generally associated with sailors and army barracks than princesses. He'd no doubt traveled from Aquatica and was using his powerful monsters--much stronger than the cyborgs the Saterans used--to pillage a few hamlets, then flee from justice back to his home world.

"Lukas, can you track this worm?"

"Traveling with three moos? It'll be like taking a road."

"Good. I think we need to show this bandit what we do with guests who abuse Sateran hospitality. Don't worry, Varl; we'll catch this raider and get your money back." She glanced around the smoking rubble that marred Kestra. "I only wish there was a way to repair the damage."

"I'm just glad only four lives were lost. That's four too many, but it could have been much, much worse."

"Excuse me, Varl?" spoke up a nearby villager, "but there's one unaccounted for. So far, there's no sign of Glovre."

"Eh?"

"It's true. We thought he'd be sure to show up when his own house caught fire, but even then there was no sign of the old skinflint. Would have served him right if we'd let it burn to the ground, since he didn't care."

"Who's Glovre?"

"He owned the apothecary's shop, selling medicine, antidotes, and teleportation escapipes." Varl pointed to the scorched but still intact two-story building, the sign over the door bearing the icon of a wooden keg. Typically, the shop was on the first floor and the storekeeper's home above.

"Old buzzard," the unnamed villager commented dryly.

"And he's not here now, either?" Sari asked.

"No, he isn't."

"Did you go inside to fight the fire?"

"No; it was completely put out from the outside. There was no call to go in."

"Then we'd better go check. You may have five dead instead of four."

As she'd expected, they found the corpse on the second floor, the body of a withered old man in his sixties wearing an expensive tunic and trousers.

"Is that him?"

"Yes, it's Glovre."

Just another tragedy, Sari thought at first sight. There was no wound that she could see and no sign that he'd been burned, so she assumed that either Glovre had choked to death on the smoke or that fear and shock had caused his heart to give out. Then she took a second look, and her gut twisted in revulsion. A long, trailing line of cloth was twined around his throat like a scarf, but it was pulled far too tight.

"This isn't just a death," she said. "It's a killing."

Varl scowled and Tonam blanched at her words. Lukas knelt down by the body and began to unwind the cloth.

"Looks like a sash," he said, running it through his hands. "Probably his own; there are plenty of clothes in this room and the chests are open. You're right, Sari; he was strangled."

It was obvious, now, the staring eyes, the swollen, blackened tongue, and the white stripes of flesh with red welts at their edges where the soot that darkened his face and throat had rubbed off on the inside of the strangling sash.

"Well, that's another crime on the head of that Layan scum," Varl said. "I hadn't realized that he'd gone so far as to take life with his own hands."

"They don't have Orakio's Law," Tonam pointed out.

"Laya's Law, to them, but it's the same thing," Mira reminded him. "This raider is a criminal by the rules of our society and his own alike, a violator of the most sacred laws."

"Let's go," Sari said. "We need to make sure that this is his last raid."

They left the hamlet straight off; as Lukas had suggested it was all but effortless to follow the trail left by the bandit and his fearmoos. The only real issue was what would happen when they caught up. The trail ran westerly, into the wooded foothills, and twilight began to gather. With the Layan's head start, the pursuers would only be able to catch him when he stopped to make camp. The monsters would no doubt be on guard. It would be hard to surprise the murdering invader.

The settling night made a difference, too. Like animals, monsters generally had better hearing and smell than humans, and often enhanced night-vision as well.

"Mira, have the cyborgs flank Lukas on point," Sari said.

"Why?" She was already signaling the command as she asked, so it wasn't a challenge but a question.

"They've got low-light and infrared vision, don't they?"

"Optical sensors, the technician corrected absentmindedly, "but yes. Oh, I see--so we aren't surprised."

"Right. I don't want to find the fearmoos when they're leaping on top of us. And there's the wild monsters, too, chirpers, moos, and eindons."

"The tracks are getting fresher," Lukas cut in. "We're starting to gain time, so he's probably stopped and set up camp. I hope he's dumb enough to build a fire."

He wasn't, but Lukas's awareness of how fresh the tracks were, the gunbots' enhanced optics, and the lucky fact that they were downwind of the Layan's camp all combined to let the pursuers know where their quarry was before they were noticed in turn.

"Lukas, Mira, mass fire on that fearmoos," Sari murmured her orders. "I want at least one of them down before we close. Tonam and I will make our move when you open fire. Tonam, just make sure not to cross their fire lines when you charge."

Drawing his needler, a short gun that fired clusters of steel darts in an expanding cone-shaped pattern, Lukas nodded. Mira's weapon was much like it but a lighter model meant for hunting--but then, she had the cyborgs to do her serious fighting for her. Sari wielded two fine quality steel knives, and Tonam a short sword.

"On your signal," the princess told Mira.

"Now."

The two gunbots fired, their Foi weapons launching small bursts of energy at their target. The fearmoos was rocked backward by the shots and by the needler assault that followed on its heels; the monster bellowed an alarm of rage that was taken up by its fellows.

Sari was on the second monster before it had the chance to react to the situation, let alone deal damage. Dodging its flailing claws, her blades found the weak points in its tough hide. Roaring, it opened its mouth and unleashed its devastating Foi breath, a spewed stream of fire. Sari, though, was prepared; although the fearmoos was much more powerful than the common moos that ran wild in Satera its behavior was much the same and the princess knew its cues. She ducked the flames, then took advantage of her dive to hamstring the monster's left leg, then roll to her feet behind it as it stumbled. Sari drove both knives down hard into the thing's back, severing the spine and piercing vital organs. The former was vital; monsters could be uncannily tough, but they could not indulge in a dying struggle if brain was not connected to limbs.

Which was when she heard a shouted word, some nonsense that must have been a proper name, and a wave of pressure slammed into her, knocking her off her feet and smashing her into the ground. It was Gra, she realized dizzily, an attack technique, one of the strange powers of Layan blood.

All around her, Sari saw, her companions had been hit by the same attack. Although two fearmoos were down, the third spat flame, and a gunbot was shattered. The other cyborg had been destroyed by the Gra attack.

"So, the little Orakian sheep have horns after all," sneered the Layan. It was too dark to see him clearly, but he wore a mantle-like cape in some light hue over his clothing and carried two short staves, a typical weapon of Layan men. "But that's all you are, sheep for the shearing. Since King Lyle won't approve any raids against the worms of Agoe, I've had to venture here beyond his reach to better my fortune."

He chortled, the sound of it working Sari into a fury. The bandit was so sure of himself that he was prancing and posturing instead of fighting. That infuriated her--in fact, it utterly offended her, not just being underrated but the thought of being beaten by someone with such a huge hole in his defenses.

She didn't leap to her feet but instead rolled along the ground, a more difficult target for him, then sprang up near the fearmoos. As she did, she was joined by Lukas, who'd abandoned his needler for two sturdy hunting knives. They struck out as one, cutting down the last of the Layan defenders.

_"Hewn!"_

This time it was Zan, drills of wind cutting into them, slashing armor and clothing, cutting into flesh and once again flattening the two Orakian fighters. He was ready with a follow-up, but before he could launch it at his fallen foes, a spray of needles from Mira's weapon struck him. His mantle turned most of them aside, but the distraction let Sari get enough breath back to sit up. The Layan was ready to counter before she could even think of doing anything else, but once again he was interrupted.

Tonam's howling battle cry was more effective than the boy's actual attack. His charge was more of a lurching stagger, for the Gra had obviously hurt him, but it got the Layan's attention. The brigand spun ninety degrees away from Sari, and the princess made her move. Ignoring the pain of her injuries, the bruised muscles and slashed flesh, she was on her feet and moving fast.

_"Flaeli!"_

The bandit's Foi technique blew Tonam off his feet and sent him flying six feet backwards through the air, carrying not just heat but explosive force. Sari was on him, then, her attack denying him the moments of concentration he needed to call upon his power. He was a powerful tech-user, but no expert fighter; even with his staves' superior reach and Sari's injuries the princess easily struck aside his guard, parried his laughably weak riposte, and punched him in the face with her knife-hilt, breaking his nose.

She could have killed him, but Orakio's Law actually meant something to her. She wouldn't kill another human in battle. Nor did she have to, when she could use expertly-placed strikes to stretch him out unconscious at her feet.

"Strip him of armor and weapons, truss him, and gag him," she ordered. "We'll haul him back home. Maybe Mother can use his crimes to gouge some new trade concessions out of Shusoran."

"Practical," Lukas said approvingly.

"Sari, I need a Monomate!" Mira called. "Tonam's hurt badly! I think he'll die if he doesn't get help, and I used the last of my medicines in the village!"

Sari shook her head.

"I don't think so."

"_What?_" exclaimed the usually calm technician. "Sari, you _can't_"

The princess walked over and dropped to her knees on the other side of the badly injured squire.

"I'm not going to dishonor his choice."

"What are you _talking_ about?"

Ignoring Mira, Sari looked down at the boy.

"Why did you do it?"

"Had...to keep him...from killing you." Bloody froth bubbled at his lips when he spoke. "And...for..."

"No, I know all about that. I mean, back at the village."

"Greedy viper...good as killed...my mother. Called in...loan even though...she was...sick. She...paid...so we...wouldn't lose house. No money...left to pay...healer."

Mira looked back and forth between Tonam and Sari in amazement.

"Found him...packing up, not...helping fight the...fire. Trying to save...his belongings. Just...saw...red."

The squire's eyes closed, and his body sagged limply as all the tension left it.

"I'll tell Mother, of course. She'll need to know what our prisoner did and didn't do when she decides what happens to him. For the rest, just leave it that Tonam died in battle. It's true enough--and it's one violation of Laya's Law that filth actually did commit, for all that Tonam helped him along to it. At least the kid had a reason; our prisoner just hates Orakians and likes money."

"But...I don't understand," Mira protested. "I just thought Tonam was trying to be a hero. How did you know that he'd killed Glovre and was trying to atone?"

"I knew he'd killed Glovre because the bandit hadn't. Remember, Glovre's neck was soot-stained under the sash? He'd had time to be caught in the smoke and ash for a while before being strangled. The bandit had come and gone, but the village had spent the better part of two hours in firefighting."

"Why Tonam, though?" Lukas asked his first question. "Why not another villager? Why not Mira, or me?"

Sari got to her feet, reflecting that she could do with a Monomate or even a Dimate herself; she hurt from head to toe and it was only getting worse as the excitement of the battle ebbed. The others probably felt the same, especially the forester.

"It was a hunch," she admitted. "I figured a villager _could_ have done it, but was more likely to care about saving the hamlet--his or her home, family, and livelihood--than settling old scores. Orakio's Law gets broken what, maybe once a year in the entire city of Satera? What were the odds that we'd show up just in time for a murder in a village of less than a hundred people? It could have been you or Mira, but Tonam was originally _from_ Kestra, so he'd be the most likely to have a motive to kill a Kestran."

"You didn't say anything right away."

Sari shrugged.

"Hey, I didn't get it all worked out until we were halfway here. I'm not exactly an expert at that kind of thing. It wasn't until he made that charge, practically begging the eindon-spawn to kill him, that I knew for sure."

"You still should have brought him back for a trial," Mira reproved.

Sari turned to her, eyes hard. She looked a lot older than fifteen to the technician just then.

"Mira, I know I don't like to make an issue of it. Orakio's blood, I _hate_ making an issue of it, but I am the _Princess of Satera_. The only authority the courts have is what my mother grants them. In Queen Lena's absence, _I_ rule. The penalty for breaking Orakio's Law is, as you well know, death. It's the ultimate treason against Orakio himself, not just the crown." She gave her ponytail a vicious yank in frustration with trying to explain. "Tonam chose what form he wanted that penalty to take and saved all our lives doing it. He'd given up the right to live, but his own choice of end...it was the only reward I had the power to give for our salvation."

~X X X~

_A/N: As you can tell, this story continues to follow up on my theory that Layan "techniques" are in fact magic._

_Not long after writing "Murder in Shusoran," I came up with the idea for a semi-sequel called  
"Murder in Aquatica," which would feature a killing on the boat from Rysel to Shusoran involving several delegates for a trade conference between the towns of Landen and Satera and the Aquatican cities of Cille, Shusoran, and Agoe. Lyle would get to play detective, and it would turn out that the killer was Lena...the victim was a Sateran native who intended to deliberately cause trouble at the conference, so she executed him. I never got around to writing that story, but I did get a chance to play with the idea of the rights and authority of an absolute monarch here when Sari makes her point at the end of the story. And it seems to play better here than it would have done in "Murder..." anyway, so that worked out._

_Sari, by the way, is my favorite character in the entire game, which is why she gets two full fics (including the four-parter "Steel and Stone") devoted to her exploits in Ayn's generation. Thea, honestly, kind of gets the shaft in my stories...which is ironic, because she, not Sari, gets to marry Ayn in the end, leading to Sean being the lead character in the final generation._


	3. Steel and Stone Prologue: Landen

_A/N: Here is the centerpiece of my second-generation fiction, the four-part "Steel and Stone." Here we explore the history of the Power Topaz, just what it's for (it didn't even unlock anything in Techna; the party just has to show it to the engineer and he'll let them pass), and explore more about the aspects of the war between Lune and Landen, including how it was that the people of Landen were able to hold their own. And, of course, it stars Sari, which to my mind is the best part! Oh, and yes, the monster Sari refers to really is spelled "lizrd" rather than "lizard" (not unlike how it's "moos," not "moose"). Darned wacky game spellings!_

~X X X~

_**Landen**_

Queen Sari of Landen and Satera slept fitfully, the blankets knotted in her fists. In truth, the "Landen and Satera" in her title was a misnomer, as the kingdom of Satera had been overrun by the monstrous armies led by Lune, its population forced to flee its farms and hamlets, its castle a shattered ruin.

This was why Sari's sleep was troubled.

Sari's mother had been Queen Lena of Satera. She had no claim to the throne of Landen at all; the role had been thrust upon her by Landen's nobles. She was the last person with Orakian royal blood in this world, and the people needed that, a champion, a figurehead to rally them if they were to muster some kind of defense against Lune's hordes. Sari, because of her duty to the remnants of the Sateran people but more because of who she was, had taken on the mantle of a true ruler, no figurehead, leading the battle against the Layan monsters.

It was a heavy burden for a girl of seventeen to bear.

She gave a little cry and sat bolt upright in bed, the fragments of a nightmare flitting at the edges of her mind. It was all blood and pain, images from the fall of Satera merging with images from war, buildings consumed by flame as children screamed and died in the upper stories, soldiers going down as orange-scaled lizrds clawed at their throats and the wind razors conjured by their Zan techniques cleaved the limbs from their bodies. And there were faces--the face of her mother, weeping, and the face of Rhys, Prince of Landen, who had abandoned his throne, abandoned his engagement to Lena, abandoned his people to chase after a woman from another world, a Layan woman at that. "Give all for love"--and now where was he when his people needed his leadership?

_Gone,_ Sari said to herself, _with only me to carry on in his place. _

The royal bedchamber, she thought, was too big, too empty, the canopied bed only a reminder of how alone she was. It didn't suit her anyway; she was a fighter, not some pampered featherhead. Silk sheets, feather mattress and pillows, brocade curtains--Sari would have preferred a bedroll under the stars.

Then she heard it.

_Scratch. _

Now awareness took over, chasing the last of her dreams. The noise was coming from one of the windows. Sari listened carefully, hearing the soft, repeated noises, and then she realized that it was the sound of metal on metal.

Her hand slipped beneath her pillow and closed around the hilt of the steel fighting knife she kept there. She drew the blade from its sheath, ready for what might happen.

Then, she saw a glint in the moonlight as one of the diamond-shaped window panes fell away, no doubt to shatter in the courtyard below. Sari doubted it would attract attention; that side of the castle backed against the mountains and so was insulated from enemy attack. Obviously it wasn't safe from a stealthy invader slipping into the castle and circling around back inside the grounds. The queen made a mental note to speak with the guard captain about increasing the patrols as she watched a hand snake inside and unlock the window.

She could have shouted for the guards at any time, of course; that would have been the easy way to deal with the intruder. Or, Sari could have attacked then, while he was trying to enter the room. That would have made the outcome all but a certainty. She held back, though, waiting to see what the intruder was after. Was it a cowardly assassination attempt, or something else?

The window swung open, and a figure slithered into the room. He was agile; she had to give him that. Climbing the tower was no easy task. His clothing was dark, and there was a small blade in his hand--a tool, not a weapon, Sari realized as he put it away.

He did not move towards the bed, did not even look at where the queen waited, shadowed by the canopy. Instead, he went over to the vanity, and began to search through the small boxes that contained Sari's inherited-but-rarely-worn collection of jewelry.

_A common thief? Stealing from the queen during a war?_ The idea was almost comical.

It was also wrong, she realized. He wasn't taking anything, despite the fact that there were valuable pieces. Nor did he snatch up any of the meseta kept in one of the boxes, what Sari thought of as her petty cash fund. Instead, he abandoned the vanity without taking anything at all.

Patience was not one of Sari's better qualities, but as a general of Landen's armies she was learning tactics. One of those lessons was to know when to wait even if she didn't feel like it. She'd chosen her course, so she continued to watch and observe.

The intruder caught sight of the settee on which Sari had tossed her day-clothes: loose shirt and trousers, shoes, and an armored chestplate. Deft hands flicked though them and pulled out her belt. The glint of the stone set in her buckle caught his eye; he ran his fingertips over it, then began to free the jewel from its setting.

Sari's leap made no more noise than a whisper, and the man had no idea she was anything but asleep until she crashed into him, her momentum carrying them both into and over the settee. Sari twisted her body, making sure the would-be thief hit the floor first, and contrived to ram an elbow into his midsection.

He wasn't a bad fighter, Sari realized as the man got his feet up and tried to push her off him. The knife was in her hand, ready to use, but instead she held on to the intruder, anticipated his attack, and used the momentum to continue into an over-the-shoulder flip that left him right back where he started, flat on his back on the floor. Sari called for the guards even as she drove her foot into the man's solar plexus.

The bedchamber door flew open and four armored soldiers rushed in.

"My lady Queen, what is it?"

"One of Lune's lackeys stopped by to visit. Take him to the dungeon for questioning. Keep a close hold on him; he's slippery." She looked over the three men and their sole female companion. "Oh, and next time, when you hear furniture being knocked around, don't wait for me to invite you in."

The senior guard flushed at the rebuke, but she was right and he knew it. In a situation when Sari might really need their help, she might not be able to call out.

"Yes, your Majesty."

As the guards hustled the intruder away, Sari bent and picked up the belt he'd been so interested in. The stone in the buckle was an heirloom of the Sateran royal family called the Power Topaz, a large yellow-amber gem of immense value. The idea that the intruder--definitely a Layan, to judge by the fighting staff he'd worn at his belt--would want it for its _monetary_ worth seemed absurd.

But why else?

Other heirloom jewels had proven to have unusual attributes. The traitor Rhys had used the Sapphire of Landen to open a passage to the world of Aquatica. Sari's mother had told her of how gems called the Moon Stone and Moon Tear had possessed literal power over the twin moons, drawing them closer to the surface during Rhys' quest for his lady Maia. Perhaps the Power Topaz could do something similar, or Lune suspected it could.

Unfortunately, no one had seen fit to tell Sari about it; if the thief remained silent, the secret of the Power Topaz was likely to remain just that.


	4. Steel and Stone I: Dressos

**Dressos **

Flames burned across the battlefield, winds howled and the earth shook, effects conjured by techniques--a word which could be used both for the weapons of Orakian cyborgs and the strange powers of Layans and their monsters. Amidst the elemental havoc, men and women fought and died, cyborgs were smashed to pieces, and monsters were cut down.

The armies of Lune had hurled themselves against the manor of Dressos with violent impunity. The manor didn't have the defenses of Landen's castle, or even the walled towns of Ilan and Yaata. Its walls were strong, but they were the walls of a home, not a fortress. Sari had been forced to meet the assault with a larger force than she'd have liked.

The problem was, she admitted, that Lune's forces were better than hers. The humans matched up well enough; the Layans had their techniques but weren't quite as capable in a straight fight. It was the nonhuman soldiers that were the problem. When the war had begun, Sari had studied everything her mother had learned about the Layan monsters used in Aquatica and the end result was that Lune's "foot troops," the lizrds and oozes that served as the bulk of his attacking infantry, rivaled the elite units of Aquatica. Landen's cyborgs, its Whistlebots, Hummers, and Striders, simply couldn't compare.

Just at the base of the wall, Sari saw a unit of lizrds under the command of a Layan witch tear into a squad of soldiers. The Orakian troops fought valiantly, but by the time the last monster fell, only three of them were standing and one of those sorely wounded. The Layan captain and the soldiers stared hard at one another, then veered off to seek other opponents. A surge of relief passed through Sari.

It was hypocrisy, she knew, and yet she couldn't get herself past it. Laya and Orakio's last commands to their people a thousand years ago had been eerily similar. The exact wording varied depending upon whom you asked, but it all boiled down to one thing: _don't kill each other_. So they didn't. Layans sent their monsters to ravage Orakian towns and butcher the population within, and Orakians returned the favor with their cyborgs, but the human soldiers never fought one another directly.

That was why Sari had not used her knife against the thief that had invaded her bedchamber in Landen two weeks ago. She hadn't been able to do it, to lash out in killing violence against her enemy.

_Sophistry,_ she thought bitterly as she surveyed the carnage. What did it matter to the dead if they faced their killer directly or were executed by mindless minions acting on human orders? And yet, she still couldn't help but feel relieved at seeing evidence that Orakio's Law and Laya's Law were being observed. Something, at least, hadn't yet been crushed by this war.

From the battlefield conditions, she judged that the time was right. The defenders were being pushed back, but the progress of the Layans was irregular and there were gaps in their lines because of it. Sari drew her knives.

"Let's do this."

In response, the unit's herald raised a horn to her lips and blew. A battery of Gunbots opened up with their long-range Foicannons, striking with fire and death into the Layan lines. Then, Sari charged. Her unit, the Queensguard (they'd named themselves; to Sari they would always be Second Battalion, Unit Six) following in her wake like she was the point of an arrow. Monsters struck at them, but when they came near Sari, they died. Two lizrds sprang at her, claws and fangs sparkling in the sun, and she bisected them both in midair with sweeps of her blades. The soldiers immediately behind her kept her back and rear flanks covered from attack, and she took care of the rest.

In surprisingly little time Landen's elite reserve had punched a hole in the Layan lines, and Sari turned, grinding up one wing of the enemy force. The Layan leader, realizing that half her troops had been caught in a pincer, signaled a retreat before it was fully enveloped. In less than an hour, the battlefield belonged to the Orakians.

The queen strode back to Dressos amid the cheers of her troops. She didn't begrudge them their enthusiasm, these men and women who'd successfully stood off an attack on their home, but she didn't share it. The price of victory had been too dear. She walked into the manor and pulled off her crown--not an ornament of rule but the name for the helmets worn by Orakian females--leaving her brown hair plastered to her face with sweat. Sari wanted a bath, not just to cleanse herself but to sink into the hot water and let her mind drift free from war and violence, but she wasn't going to get it. She'd barely have time for a quick splash of water on her face and clean clothes. In war, there was never time for luxury. Especially when your side was losing.

The manor's dining room had been co-opted by Sari and her staff for a planning room. The huge oak table was covered with maps, sketches, and plans. Armorial trophies had been stripped from their places on the high stone walls and used to equip soldiers, but the heads of tsveidons, nayls, and moos glared down balefully. Sari didn't sit at the head of the table; no one sat anywhere, most of the time, but milled around from place to place as they needed. The queen had gone there at once after changing.

"Queen Sari!" Lord Ashton Mercier all but cheered. "Architect of another victory!" She could have done without the applause, but she supposed he had the right. Dressos was his home, after all, that they'd just saved.

For the third time.

"A victory, yes," agreed Jared Di Morni, Grand Master of the Knights of the Mountain, before switching over to his oft-heard refrain, "but my lady Queen, you took too many risks in the battle. You must not throw yourself heedlessly into the fray; you are too important to Landen."

She fixed him with a cold-iron stare.

"How?"

"Your Majesty?"

"How am I important?"

"You are our Queen, the example we all look to! If you were to fall in battle, the hope would go out of our people in an instant!"

_I certainly hope not. _

"Why?"

Her one-word questions were obviously giving Sir Jared trouble; he looked like he'd been poleaxed.

"She means, why do the people look up to her?" asked Gero Ra Tallant, knight-captain of the contingent of the Knights of the Forest that had accompanied the army. He glanced at Sari. "Is that correct, your Majesty?"

"It is," she affirmed with a nod. Sari liked Gero; he came directly to the point without unnecessary formality or concern for what other people would think. There was a longstanding tradition of friendly rivalry between Landen's orders of knighthood, and Gero tended to tweak Jared's sense of propriety.

"Why...because you are the queen, a leader we all can look up to."

"Wrong," she informed him. "People don't respect me because I'm the queen, especially not the average trooper out there with his life on the line. They respect me because I take the chances I ask them to take, and because, if you'll forgive me, I'm one of the best fighters in this army. Soldiers don't care about bloodlines and noble families. They want a leader that treats them fairly and who knows her way around the battlefield." She turned to the other female in the room. "Isn't that right, Valya?"

Valya Crest, captain of a squad of mercenary warriors who'd made their living rousting monsters in southern Landen and escorting caravans through the Landen-Aquatica passage before the outbreak of war, nodded firmly.

"Exactly. There's no client we didn't hate more than a pampered noble or merchant who stayed snug and safe at home while sending us out to fight and die. Those were always the ones who would try to spend our lives like coins, because they didn't understand the realities of battle and death."

"Sir Jared has one point well worth mentioning, though," observed the last member of the council of war. His name was Colonel Troy, and he was the commander of the non-knightly troops: the guards, the militia, and the citizen levies. "You are our best fighter, and that makes you a weapon we can't afford to lose on the field."

"If I don't _take_ the field, what good am I as a weapon?" the queen countered. Sari walked down the table until she reached a strategic map of the world of Landen. "Look here: Lune already controls the entire western half of this world, which used to be the kingdom of Satera. He also controls the central island, keeping us from setting sail in boats." She traced the red lines marking Lune's control with her fingertip. "We still hold Landen, Yaata, and Ilan proper, but Lune's monsters roam freely in the countryside between them. The northeastern forests are completely under his control, and he's managed to station a battalion here in the passage to Aquatica to prevent us from escaping or seeking aid. The only part of Landen he hasn't overrun is the southern half of the kingdom, and there's not much down there, a few farming hamlets and a manor or two. No castles, no major towns, no resource centers."

"At least," Jared pointed out, "if we can keep the south we'll have enough food to take care of the whole population--though getting it to them is another problem entirely."

He was right about that; despite his excessive regard for propriety and status, Jared did have a good military mind.

"I can't argue with that," Gero said. "Most of the farmland around Ilan is still ours, since Lune doesn't have a foothold on the island, but Yaata and Landen are isolated."

"Lune's not actively besieging those towns though, is he?" asked Lord Mercier. "I mean, you were able to travel out of Landen to come here, your Majesty."

Sari nodded.

"No, he's not. There are squads here and there, and roving packs of monsters loose in the countryside. A military force could punch its way through, as we did, or a small group slip by, but a slow-moving caravan of wagons would be a sitting duck."

"There's always the sea," Valya said. "A boat could leave Midian or Hartnor"--she tapped the location of the tiny fishing villages she'd named--"and sail to Yaata."

Sari shook her head.

"Lune's sea monsters make that all but suicidal. We'll have to forcibly clear a lane, either by land or by sea, in order to get food through, or their stores will run out in approximately four months."

"Do we have the strength for that?" asked the colonel. "If Lune put a defensive ring around each city, he could keep us at bay, or at least make us grind up a lot of our strength breaking the siege."

"If he really wanted to," Sari noted grimly, "he could crack either town like an eggshell. We're ready for him in a way Satera wasn't, so we'd hurt his army, but he'd succeed. Just like here. If the Layans would just throw waves of monsters and troops at us, they could take Dressos. The only reason we're able to hold out is that Lune's generals care about conserving their resources, and because we have a tactical edge."

"We do?" the local lord asked.

"Human troops," Velya told him. "Their side is almost all monsters, with Layan officers to direct them. Our soldiers can follow complex plans and act as a group much better than theirs. If our cyborgs weren't so weak compared to their monsters, we might be in a position to show them something about Orakian resolve."

"Strategically I believe we have the edge, too," Jared noted.

The colonel grunted.

"You can say that again. Half the time, I can't figure out what they're up to. Like this place, for example. This is the third big push they've made on Dressos--but why? What makes this manor more important than taking, say, Yaata?"

Sari had wondered that herself. They'd defended the manor on the theory that any even partially fortified holding was worth keeping as Lune stripped Landen of its resources, but had no special reason themselves for valuing it.

Apparently, Lune felt differently.

Gero suggested that it could be a trap, an attempt to get Landen to exhaust its troop strength and resources, but Sari vetoed that idea.

"I don't believe that. This is a basically defensible location, with the mountains and woods acting as an effective natural barrier to prevent a flanking attack. If they wanted to provoke a war of attrition, they'd pick terrain that was a little more forgiving to their side. No, Dressos is important to Lune."

"But why?" Mercier asked. "It's not as if we control key natural resources or strategic positioning. Dressos isn't even an obstacle to Lune's advancement; we're at the mouth of a dead-end valley. It's nice, arable farmland, but there's nothing there except a couple of peasant villages."

"There has to be something," Jared argued. "Even if it's just the extermination of the Orakian people, Lune has to have a goal."

Colonel Troy's eyes narrowed.

"It sounds like there's something Lune or his generals know--or think they know--that we do not."

"I'd have to agree," Jared stated.

"In which case," Sari decided, "we'd better figure out exactly what that is, and just how badly we don't want Lune to get his hands on it. We need to investigate the valley."

"Shall I prepare a detachment of knights?"

Sari shook her head.

"No. This is a job for a small group. We need to keep our forces here strong, because if we divide them it means Lune can take us out bit by bit. I'll want a small team to go with me."

"With you, your Majesty?" This time it was Gero.

"That's right. If we find something, I want to be on hand to make a decision _immediately_. We don't have the luxury of making slow, carefully analyzed choices."

"But what if Lune attacks while you do not have the army to defend you?"

"Lune's army isn't in the valley. He'll have to fight his way in or learn to fly if he wants to get to me." She smiled wryly at the Grand Master. "Look at it this way, Jared. In a way you'll get your wish about keeping me safe. If Lune's army attacks Dressos again, he'll have to go through all of you in order to reach me. The odds aren't going to get any better than that."

~X X X~

_A/N: I took the names of the Landen's orders of knighthood from the Japanese version of Rhys's speech after Maia is kidnapped when he cries out "Knights of the forests! Knights of the mountains!" etc. It's a lot fancier than the English version of the same speech. I've also taken the liberty of assuming that there are settlements on the world map—small villages and such—that we don't actually get to see in-game. Most of the time that's a pretty safe assumption in an RPG, given the size of the world map and the apparent populations, but in PSIII it's not necessarily the case. Still, I think it's a reasonable idea (since, after all, we know we're not shown everything, such as the facilities in which the Orakian cities build their cyborgs)._

_Those of you who read the original version of this story might have noticed that I'd accidentally recited the name of the town of Ilan as "Ilan"...which is a village from _Lunar: The Silver Star_. I've corrected that here._

_The various cyborgs I mentioned here in the Landen armed forces are the equivalent of "first generation" cyborgs. As players know, because Rhys is an Orakian, he fights against monsters. Only in the second (Ayn's) generation, do cyborg enemies appear, so even the weakest cyborgs in Siren's armies are "second generation" strength. Whistlebots are the equivalent of Whistles from _PSII _and _PSIV_, while the other ones named I based on existing series of enemy cyborgs: Gunbots are low-level versions of the Lazrbot/Mazrbot/Fazrbot series, Striders are from the Seeker/Hunter/Killer series, and Hummers are...basically something I just made up._


	5. Steel and Stone II: Carin

**Carin**

They assembled Sari's team of volunteers and had the outfitters provide them with gear that evening so that the next morning, no more than an hour after dawn, the band was ready to depart. Sari had left Sir Jared in command of the army; though they disagreed strongly about what her role as queen should be, he was an excellent general and, ironically enough, possessed of the same personal skill and courage Sari considered important.

Sari's party contained four members in addition to herself. One was Lord Mercier; he was familiar with the terrain of his fiefdom as well as its people. Mercier was also a competent enough though not elite fighter, skilled with needlers. He'd be supported in the role of long-range combatant by the two Whistlebot cyborgs accompanying them, conical robots about three feet high equipped with Foi flamethrowers and small, single-target needleguns.

The other three human members were a mixed bag, chosen to deal with a variety of situations. Marella, a Knight of the Forest, was almost as skilled in battle as Sari; the blonde woman would assist her queen in front-line fighting and serve as a bodyguard. Lira was a cyborg technician and expert at mechanical matters, and Nevin a tracker and outdoorsman in Lord Mercier's service. Hopefully between the two of them they would be prepared for whatever Lune was after, be it technical or biological. Sari may not have known what they might find, but she was sure that if Lune got what he wanted, it would be very bad for Landen.

They walked all morning through the valley plains, passing by fields of crops and pastures where animals grazed. It looked pleasant and bucolic, as if just a few miles away men and women hadn't bled and died in battle with monsters out of a nightmare. When they passed near enough, though, they could see that the farmers and herders were the elderly or the very young. Lord Mercier had dutifully enlisted all the able-bodied from his lands into the militia to try and defend Landen.

The sight merely stiffened Sari's resolve to defeat Lune. This was what she was fighting for, to make this peaceful life more than just an illusion.

"Your lands are well-kept, my Lord," Marella observed.

"Thank you," Mercier replied, pleased and surprised by the compliment.

"Do you think we should stop and investigate this area?" Nevin wondered.

Sari glanced at the nobleman. This was his area of expertise.

"I don't think so. The valley is well-settled in this region. If there was something of interest, the people would have come across it, and it would have become part of local lore even if they didn't understand what it was."

"But would you have heard about it, my Lord?" Nevin asked. "Forgive me, but the nobility doesn't always get a chance to hear what the common folk talk about over their ale." He looked a bit apprehensive, as if afraid Mercier would become angry with him. He didn't, although Marella's eyes did narrow. Perhaps she was a bit more aware of her knightly status than Sari would have liked.

"No offense taken," Mercier told the hunter. "You're quite right. These precincts, though, are near to the manor, and I do try to keep my ear to the ground. Near the end of the valley, though, you could be accurate. The best approach would be to stop along the way and ask the people in the various hamlets we pass about local rumors and legends. If there's something here of importance, they've had generations to find it. A better chance than we have, wouldn't you say, your Majesty?"

"Much better," Sari agreed. "While we're at it, could we cut out all this 'your Majesty' and 'my Lord' and 'my lady Queen' rot? It's bad enough at court, where at least it has a place, but a band like this is supposed to work together as a team. All this concern for rank is starting to make my teeth ache."

The irony there being that because she was the queen, she could insure that the niceties of rank be ignored. Then again, that was the good thing about being the monarch; she could make certain that things were done the way she felt was best for all.

_Let's just hope my judgment is right. _

The next two days were marked by a certain sameness: travel, broken at intervals to stop at a hamlet or a large farm to ask questions. The questioning made their journey take much longer than it might have, but Sari was confident that they hadn't missed anything. On the second day they started ascending into the upper regions of the valley, near the edge of the world, coming to another hamlet as twilight began to fall.

"This should be Carin," Mercier said. "It's the furthest east of the settlements on my estates."

"Then if anyone knows something, it'll be here," Nevin concluded. "Unless someone's been lying to us, of course."

"Why would they do that?" Marella asked. "There's a war on. Keeping back a piece of information might mean that the Layans could overrun and kill them."

"Just trying to cover all bases, Mari dear," the hunter said jauntily. Freed from the constraints of formal propriety, Nevin had started to display a wicked sense of humor. "Wouldn't want to overlook a possibility until we find what we're looking for."

"And some people are just schemers who are out for whatever they can get even if they hurt other people along the way," pointed out Lira. "We all had to live through the Regent's Council after the King and Queen died heirless."

Sari remembered _that_ all too well. If not for those power-hungry schemers, Satera might not have fallen, and her mother might still be alive.

"It's a pointless argument," she snapped, both to ward off the pain and to bring an end to the discussion. "Let's just go up to Carin and see if anyone knows anything." She turned and started up the hill, ignoring the hurt looks more than one of her companions turned on her back.

It would have taken a great deal of ambition to call Carin a village. It consisted of six houses, two of which were the sturdily-built, two-story style common to larger settlements, while the other four were huts. The sign of a foaming mug hung outside the door of one of the larger buildings; the lights showing through the tavern window beckoned the party as night closed in.

They caught everyone's attention at once, of course, the instant they entered the taproom. Carin just didn't get travelers; the eight or nine customers were probably the same ones every night, swapping hopes, complaints, and tall tales over the local brew. That the newcomers were well-armed and some richly dressed made the surprise all the more astounding. The bartender, a beefy man with heavily muscled arms, came out from behind the bar. The way he favored a twisted right leg told at once why he wasn't part of the militia.

"Lord Mercier," he said with a bow. "How can we help you?"

It took the noble a couple of seconds to recognize the man, but he did come up with the name.

"Ah, Gaid. I'm surprised you know me; I think we've only met twice."

"It suits a man to mark his lord well in his mind."

"Well, I can't really argue with that." He turned to his companions. "Everyone, this is Gaid, my reeve in this region." He grinned at the man. "Gaid, I didn't realize you had a...side occupation."

"It keeps me busy. Besides which, it saves me having to walk over to the tavern when I'm called to break up a fight if I run the place myself." He said the last with an amiable grin, obviously inviting his lord to commiserate with him over the responsibilities of ruling. "So what brings you here, my Lord?"

"The same thing that drives us all these days, Gaid, the war."

"Lune has made three tries at Dressos," Sari told the reeve. "We're here to find out why."

Gaid raised an eyebrow.

"If you want the secrets to the demon's strategy, you've come to the wrong place. None of us are mind readers."

Sari expected Marella to burst out with an ill-timed "Watch how you talk to your queen!" but the knight surprised her by wisely staying silent.

"Lune wants something in this valley. We don't know what or why, but we do know it's important enough for him to change his tactics and waste his resources against a defensible position of no obvious military value. We need to know if anyone's seen anything unusual, even if they can't be sure what it is. Even folklore would be an improvement on what we understand now, even something that happened generations ago."

She looked past the bartender at the men in the taproom, sweeping them with her gaze.

"You ought to tell them about the shapes," one man said softly to another.

"Aw, they're not interested in that, Sid."

"Actually, we are," Sari cut in. "Like I said, anything at all could be useful."

"Blunt sort of lass, isn't she?" Gaid commented.

"Well, she _is_ the queen," Mercier replied, almost apologetically. No one in the small tavern missed the announcement, resulting in stunned faces all around. Royalty wasn't something the folks of Carin saw very often, and if they did it was because one of the peasants had traveled away, not that the royal had come to their little hamlet.

Unfortunately, Sari didn't have time to cope with a surprised peasantry, so she quickly acted to try and narrow the perceived distance between them. She pulled out a chair at the table where the man who'd talked about "shapes" was sitting and dropped into it backwards, folding her arms across the back.

"What's your name?"

"R-Rollo, your Majesty," he stammered. No, she thought, that wouldn't do at all. Sari reached into her pocket, took out a ten-meseta piece, and flipped it to Gaid.

"A round for the house," she said, "and an extra for anyone with a story to tell, so as to wet their whistle."

The reeve got the hint and drew a couple of mugs of dark, foamy ale, setting them down in front of Rollo and Sari before he took to pouring everyone else's. Sari took an experimental sip of the brew. It was typical Landen mountain-ale, almost thick enough to chew with a rich, creamy taste to it that concealed the alcohol content.

"I'd offer to have one with you for every story, but I have a feeling that two would put me under the table, and no one likes a drunken queen. It's so hard to tell one that she snores," she added in a conspiratorial aside. This drew a spate of laughter--a bit forced from some of the more nervous peasants, but it was a start--and she moved on to the business at hand.

"Now, Rollo, what are these 'shapes' you mentioned?"

"Well, that's just it, my Lady," he said easily, apparently deciding any queen who'd buy him an ale wasn't going to have him arrested for some mysterious offense. "I can't rightly say _what_ they were. Just things lurking around the edges of my farm at twilight a couple of days back. I never got a close look at them. I didn't like the looks of them, though, the way they were slinking around just outside the light. Two nights straight I saw them, and let me tell you I was getting mighty anxious on the second night." He took a deep swig of ale. "Then, the night after that, they were gone. Never touched me or mine, so I can't complain too loud, I guess."

"Do you think they could have been monsters?" Nevin asked.

The gray-haired peasant ran his hand through his short bangs.

"That's just it. Ain't no monsters around here."

Sari glanced at Mercier.

"The valley is a closed space," he said. "My twice-great-grandfather was supposed to have led a massive hunt to clear out all the chirpers, eindons, and moos hereabouts, and no more could get in because of the terrain."

"The mountains would be much too hard for weak monsters like those to cross," agreed the hunter.

"Plus, like I said, they stayed out of the light," Rollo took the floor back. "Could have been animals, monsters, even cyborgs for all I know."

"Have you or anyone ever seen these shapes at any other time?"

"I haven't, and no one else said they did."

"I see," Sari mused. "Thank you." She looked around the taproom. "Anyone else?"

"Well," the barmaid spoke up. She was a moderately pretty pink-haired girl with a scoop-necked blouse and tight skirt. "You said you were interested in local stories, right?"

Sari nodded.

"There's the Wishing Stone," the serving girl told her. "I don't know why Layans would want it, but it's a landmark everyone around here knows about."

"Wishing Stone?" Lord Mercier asked, curious about his lands. "I don't believe I've ever heard of that."

"It's a stone pillar about an hour's walk northeast of here," Gaid supplied.

"How did it get its name?" Marella wanted to know.

"They say that if you press your hand to it and make a wish, the stone will grant your heart's desire," the barmaid told her. "It's just a little superstition, though. It doesn't hurt anything to try, right?"

"No, I can't see why not, though I doubt Lune's chasing after harmless fun." Sari frowned, thinking of the attempt Lune's spy had made to steal the Power Topaz. There were many things in Landen that dated back to the days of Orakio whose true abilities had been lost over the passing centuries. "Not unless he knows something we don't."

"Did you want to check it out?" Nevin asked.

"Definitely. It won't take long, and it would be silly to overlook any possibility."

She took another sip of the ale.

"The legends say that Lune fought at the head of Laya's armies a thousand years ago," she mused. "If that's true, he might know things about our world that even we don't. He could try to--"

She never got the chance to finish the thought; she was interrupted by cries and screams erupting outside the tavern. She was on her feet in an instant, knives drawn. Through the taproom window they could see the sudden blossoming of flames.

"Is it an enemy attack?" Lira exclaimed. _"Here?"_

The battle party rushed outside, Marella and Sari in the lead. They were greeted by a scene of carnage. Monsters swarmed the streets, and two of the buildings were alight. Oozes, sickly-hued blobs about two feet in diameter, seemed to grow pinpoints of light inside their bodies that swelled to fist-size before being disgorged by the monsters. These burning missiles ignited wood and thatch where they hit, sending a third hut up in flames before Sari's eyes. From inside the burning homes the anguish of the dying pealed out, while outside lizrds pounced on the villagers lucky enough to have escaped the flames.

Screams filled Sari's ears as she threw herself into the fray, and it was not until her blades had torn apart the nearest ooze that she realized that it was her own voice. Next to her Marella cut a hissing, snarling lizrd off its prey, a terrified boy no more than ten. Mercier and Nevin were firing their needlers, and Lira ordered the Whistlebots into combat. It was quick and brutal, the monsters no match for the rage of the Orakian warriors. Sari dispatched the last of the lizrds and was starting to think about ways to fight the fire when she heard the howl of fresh agony.

Everyone spun to see Lira lying on the ground, an ooze's gelatinous form wrapped around her leg. Tears streamed down her face as she stabbed ineffectually at the monster with her hunting knife. Nevin was closest, but he could only stare helplessly, the needler in his grip an unsuitable weapon due to its wide-spreading fire. If he shot, he'd hit Lira, too.

Sari sprinted towards the fallen technician and lunged with her knife. It ripped open the creature, which rapidly lost its cohesion as it was cut apart, dissolving into a stinking ichor. She hadn't been fast enough, though. The ooze's acidic slime had dissolved--_digested_--right through Lira's leg below the knee.

The queen yanked a Monomate out of her belt pouch, opened the cap, and poured the green liquid into Lira's mouth. Legend had that there had been easier ways to deliver these medicines in battle in the ancient days, but it was enough for Sari that the medicine itself still could be made. Before her eyes the bleeding stopped and a layer of fresh new skin grew across the stump.

"T-thanks, Sari," the woman said, still trembling from shock. "You saved my life."

"I only wish I could have been here sooner."

"Hey, a little Trimate and it'll grow back as good as new. I just wish we had some here with us; I'm not going to be much use to you on the quest this way."

Sari promised herself to secure that Trimate for Lira, even if she had to buy it with her personal funds. The powerful healing medicine was beyond the skill of most doctors and apothecaries; what few they had in Landen were largely left over from the Devastation War. There wasn't time to do any more than that; the fires had to be stopped before they consumed the whole village, and as many people saved from the flames as they could manage.

It was long, hard work, and by the end of it Sari and the others were exhausted, covered in soot and grime. Nine people were dead and another twelve injured, this in a hamlet of no more than forty souls counting the inhabitants of the outlying farms like Rollo who came into Carin to drink, trade, or talk. Aside from Lira's maiming, one cyborg had also been destroyed among Sari's group.

"Damn Lune for doing this," Sari swore. "What pleasure does he get out of butchering elders and children?"

"How did the monsters get here, anyway?" Mercier wanted to know.

"The hard way," Marella said. "He controls the territory north of here; he must have forced his monsters to cross the mountain range."

"He'd have lost dozens that way. It's impossible to cross those peaks safely."

"Safely, no, but even if nine out of every ten was killed on the way, that still leaves the tenth one here to fight and kill for him. If it was important enough to waste his strength like that, he could do it."

"And he would," Sari agreed. "The demon doesn't care about people's lives; what would a few monsters be to him?" She wiped the sweat from her forehead on the back of her sleeve and left a black streak of soot on the fabric. "I thought we could spend the night here and press on in the morning, but if Lune's willing to sacrifice so many monsters to get what he wants, we can't afford to wait around. Let's get directions, because we're heading for the Wishing Stone right now."


	6. Steel and Stone III: Archaic

**Archaic**

The locals gave Sari's group directions to the Wishing Stone, and even at night, in unfamiliar territory, Nevin's huntcraft was able to guide them right to it. It was obvious once they drew near, a fifteen-foot obelisk thrust into the sky out of the plain. Mercier lit a lantern, so they could better examine it.

"Could this be what Lune is after?" Marella wondered dubiously. Each side was marked with runelike designs, abstract patterns which distracted the eye. The central design of each pattern was identical, though: an eight-spoked wheel with an indentation in the hub. Mercier brushed his fingers against the carving.

"Doesn't remind you of Orakio's symbol?" he asked. Thinking of the sunburst design on the gates of Landen's castle, Sari had to agree.

"It could just be folk art, or some kind of shrine," the nobleman continued, "but it might not--and if it truly does date to Orakio's time..."

"Then it might be something important--a weapon perhaps!" Nevin said excitedly.

"It would also explain another mystery," Sari said. "If this dates back to the Devastation War, and Lune really is the one of legend, Laya's steel fist, then his knowledge could date back to that time. This could be some legacy from Orakio which we've since forgotten but Lune did not. He ordered the attacks on Dressos to capture or destroy this relic before we had the chance to discover it and bring it into play." She frowned sourly and added, "Presuming that this isn't just a pretty piece of rock carved a couple of centuries ago by the locals."

"Would the ancients have worked in stone, though?" Nevin wondered. "I'd have expected it to be cold steel and crackling electricity, like a cyborg."

"The gates of Satera and Landen's castles _look_ like stone," Sari pointed out, "but it's only a facade--and the cave passage to Aquatica was sealed behind a stone wall until Rhys unlocked it with the Sapphire." Her gut twisted with the thought of the traitor, and she forced her mind back on the subject at hand. Wishing the past had been different wouldn't change it.

"It's too bad Lira isn't here; she might have been able to tell."

"Wait a minute, Marella. I'd like to try something."

It was thinking about the Landen-Aquatica passage and the Sapphire that had given rise to the idea. Lune's agent had tried to steal the Power Topaz, just as Lune's army had tried to conquer this location, so perhaps there was a connection. Sari plucked the stone from her buckle and pressed it into place in the indentation on the side nearest her. The stone was a perfect fit.

At once, the stone began to glow, a brilliant golden light shining forth from deep within. The carved symbols shone emerald-green and a deep rumbling came from the hillside beneath their feet.

A large square block of the greensward suddenly seemed to withdraw into the ground, then split apart, each half sliding aside to reveal a yawning portal with stairs descending into the hillside. Sari retrieved the Power Topaz from the obelisk, half-expecting the door to close again, but it remained open.

"We have our answer," Mercier noted.

"Let's go," the queen said. "Be on your guard; we don't know what may be lurking in there."

Mercier extinguished the lantern as they descended into the passage. It wasn't needed; set in the corners where the steel walls met the ceiling there were what looked like crystal rods that cast a greenish-white light throughout the staircase. Next to the door was a handle, a metal bar affixed to a disk by each end. Sari gripped it and turned the disk ninety degrees. With a deep rumbling, the doors shut again. Turning the handle back made the passage open.

"Better to leave it closed," Marella advised. "That way, if there are any more monsters about, they can't follow us in."

"Since we know it will open again for us, you're right," Sari agreed, and shut the portal.

They went down the staircase, descending at least one hundred and fifty feet beneath the surface until they reached the floor. That floor, too, was made of metal, a grill of long, thin bars through which Sari could see machinery, endless machinery. After about a hundred feet the passage ended in a metal door, two interlocking plates of steel or something harder. Perhaps they could be locked to seal out intruders, but they slid open as if by magic at Sari's approach. Beyond them was a gigantic chamber, as big as all the rooms in Landen Castle put together. Valves, pipes, and huge tanks ran through it, massive cranes hung from the ceiling, conveyor belts led to and from chambers fixed to the walls, and there seemed to be a second level at least thirty feet above their heads made of some clear, glasslike material.

"By Orakio!" Mercier exclaimed. "Do you realize what this place is, Sari?"

She did. There were ones like it, only on a far, far smaller scale, in Landen, Yaata, and Ilan, and had been one in Satera.

"It's a cyborg factory."

"It's huge," the nobleman stated the obvious. "We could easily double or triple our cyborg production rates if we were able to make it work."

"More than that, Ash," Marella chimed in. "The cyborg templates we have are nothing like the ones Orakio is said to have used in his battles. We've lost so much knowledge since then--but maybe here there would be some of those ancient templates. War robots that could stand up to Lune's monsters one-on-one, or better!"

"This place could change the entire course of the war," Nevin said. "Then again, that's why we've been trying so hard to keep you from reaching it."

They spun to face the hunter. He'd lagged back behind the others until he was a good twenty feet away, and in one of his hands he held a glass globe, perhaps four inches in diameter, that seemed to be filled with a churning red smoke. Nevin's usual expression seemed to have dropped away, to be replaced by a sharp, predatory look.

Belatedly, Sari realized something she should have understood in Carin: like cyborgs, Layan monsters needed a human leader to direct them. She'd been assuming that Lune simply ordered the monsters through the mountains to attack, but it couldn't have been that way, else they'd have gone after Rollo when he saw them as "shapes." Someone had had to order them to attack Carin, and now they knew whom.

"You spying little worm," Sari growled through clenched teeth. "You butchered those innocent people."

"Orakian dogs," the spy snapped back. "They knew of this place, therefore they had to die. Unfortunately, you proved able to defend them with...minimal losses, but this can be corrected, once I deal with you and this place."

"You'll 'deal' with us? I'm not surprised that not even Laya's Law means anything to you."

"Don't judge me by your standards, Orakian." He thrust his left hand out, chanting a quick phrase. A bolt of fire exploded from his palm and decimated the Whistlebot which had escaped the attack at Carin. Simultaneously, he hurled the sphere to the floor, where it shattered against the metal grill. The smoke boiled up out of it, swelling to a twisting cloud ten feet in height.

_No,_ Sari realized, _not a cloud. _There was a face in the smoke, and what looked like misty, long-fingered arms.

"That Secundus should keep your attention," Nevin sneered. He made a quick gesture and his body was limned in sparkling blue lights. When he moved, his reactions seemed somehow faster and the motions themselves swifter. Some kind of technique to aid his escape, Sari assumed as the Layan ran off into the shadows.

There was no time to go after Nevin. Acting on orders no doubt delivered by the Layan's powers, the mist-monster floated towards the Orakians. It raised its long, clawed hands, mouth moving soundlessly, and a whirlwind seemed to explode from the ground, whipping at Sari, Marella, and Mercier with ripping, slashing winds. The Zan effect scoured armor, tore clothing and flesh, while simultaneously drawing oxygen from the air around them, sucking the breath from their lungs. Mercier was tumbled over and Marella knocked to her knees.

Sari managed to get her knives out and take two staggering steps towards the thing before a clawed hand lashed out. The blow was a feeble one, though, and she easily slashed out in response, though she had no idea how a sharp blade could hurt something seemingly made from wind. She was surprised, though; as her blade swept through the red mist she felt something fighting its passage, a kind of cohesive force. Wisps of crimson smoke were pulled out of its form by the knives' passage, vanishing into the air.

"It can be hurt!" Sari told the others. "There's something that keeps it from dissipating"--some Layan technique, no doubt--"and we can attack that."

Marella got to her feet and charged the monster, while the nobleman merely sat up and fired his needler from the ground. The stinging impacts caught it off guard, and the two women tore savagely into it with their blades. The Secundus's face twisted in a soundless scream, and its lips fluttered as once more it called forth Zan.

This attack was different from the first one. The wind whipped out in an arc, its leading edge of air molecules as keen as any sword. Sari didn't know the scientific explanation for what happened, but she felt the wind razor cut her chestplate in two, lightly slicing into the flesh beneath.

Marella wasn't so lucky. The golden-haired knight had been in an attack crouch when the Zan had hit, and the leading edge bit into her neck no more than an inch below her chin. Her head bounced once, then came to rest upright, her eyes staring macabrely at her killer.

Sari didn't see what had happened to Mercier; there was no time to worry about it yet. She pushed off her right foot and lunged, both knives outstretched before her like spearpoints. The blades penetrated full-length into the monster's smoky form; it was too big to be able to dodge easily. Then, she yanked the blades in opposite directions, tearing a huge rent in the Secundus. Red smoke billowed out in great clouds, stinging at Sari's eyes and blocking her vision, but then it cleared, dissolving away into seeming nothingness.

Lord Mercier, Sari saw, was still alive; the windblade had slashed deeply into his arm but caused no serious damage. He gulped down a Monomate, which closed the freely-bleeding wound.

"I can't believe that Nevin was a Layan traitor," he said. "He was part of Landen's army!"

"It wouldn't be too hard," Sari said. "He'd just have to volunteer for the militia once the war broke out. Our mission was made up of volunteers, too, and he had the skills to make sure he'd be accepted."

"What if we hadn't chosen him?"

"I'm sure he'd have found another way to raise trouble, probably following us on his own." She looked up and around at the gigantic chamber. "We've got to catch him before he's able to do permanent damage. I'm not sure our maintenance cyborgs are programmed to repair something on this scale, and there are probably some things, like the central control, which we could never repair--and he knows it. We've got to stop him _now_."

"We should split up to cover more ground," Mercier told her, "but be careful."

"Yeah; who knows what other nasty little tricks he's got up his sleeves. Yell if you see him."

They took off in opposite directions, footsteps ringing eerily off the grillwork floor. The machinery turned the place into a maze of rooms, pathways, and catwalks, no doubt with an internal logic but not one Sari understood. The only thing in her favor was that Nevin had the same problem. While Lune might have remembered the location of this place from a thousand years ago, he could hardly have known the interior layout, so he would not have been able to give that information to his lackey.

_He can't just randomly smash stuff, either, because it would lead us right to him,_ she reasoned. _He has to wait until he finds something critical, like the main control room. _Sari stopped running and tried to think. If she could beat Nevin to the control room, his head start wouldn't matter.

_So, if I were building this, where would I put that room?_

Sari didn't know what the archaic technology might demand by way of architecture, but if she were in command she would want a position where she could look down at the entire operation, possibly able to see troubles beginning and act to avert them or minimize the damage.

She raised her gaze, and found a likely location, a rectangular box mounted high on the wall above the second level. A window of what looked like smoked glass ran the length of it. Sari didn't see any way to reach it or any doors on the box's sides, but thanks to the transparent upper floor she did see a door on the second level directly below the box. It might lead to stairs. At the least, it was worth a chance.

Sari moved quickly but cautiously, mentally cursing the way her hard-soled boots rang off the metal floor. More than once her search for a stairway to the upper level left her facing a dead end. The factory really was a maze, and she wondered if it had been built that way to confuse possible invaders. After all, it was a relic of the Devastation War.

At last Sari reached the second level. The floor, she found, wasn't glass but some kind of clear, artificial substance, the kind used in cyborgs together with metal. Her footsteps were more quiet there, clicking softly instead of ringing against metal. It was only a short walk to the doors beneath the chamber she assumed--hoped--was the control room. Above the doors a red light burned dully.

"Now, how do I get this open?" she mused aloud. There was no handle, no lever, but there was a panel next to the door which glowed a soft green. Since it was at least distinctive, Sari touched it and was rewarded for her troubles when the light over the doors also turned green and the doors themselves slid open.

Sari slipped through the doors. Inside, there was not the staircase she had been expecting but only a small cubicle, an empty one. She wondered what it was for; the cubicle served no useful purpose that she could see. There was no furniture, and the walls were bare metal. The only thing that looked even remotely promising was a panel on the wall to the right of the door. It featured two lighted arrows, one pointing up in green and one pointing down in red.

Since touching a green light had opened the doors, and since she wanted to go up, Sari touched the upward-pointing arrow. The doors slid shut, and there was a sudden lurch as the queen's stomach told her she was ascending rapidly. In a moment, a soft chime rang, the arrows switched colors, and the doors slid open to reveal another room.

Sari stepped out of the transport cubicle. Her hunch had obviously been right. The side walls of the room were covered in display screens, while the wall opposite the doors was pierced by the long window she'd seen from below. A quick look confirmed that she was in fact in the same place she'd seen from the floor, though oddly enough the window seemed clearer, much easier to see through from this side.

Below the window was a long bank of controls--screens, touch panels, switches, dials. Sari found herself wishing dearly that Lira was there. While the Landen-folk had lost much of the technological knowledge their ancestors had possessed, technicians like Lira at least were able to operate the kingdom's cyborg factories. Although much smaller in scale, the methods of operation had to be somewhat analogous, whereas Sari was completely at sea. She looked around the room, hoping to find something that she could understand.

Luckily, her eyes fell upon a display which read, "Emergency Power Accessed. Insert Keystone in Main Panel to Confirm Full System Initialization." She didn't quite understand all the words, but she thought she'd gotten the gist of it. When Sari had inserted the Power Topaz in the Wishing Stone, she'd activated "emergency power"--doors, lights, and so on. However, she had to do something more to completely activate the factory and make it work.

It was fairly obvious what the "keystone" was--or at least she hoped so; it could have been a second jewel--so Sari searched for a place to insert it. On the panel beneath the window, she discovered it, a shallow indentation lined with circuitry set in a silvery metal plate. The Power Topaz fit exactly.

The change was astounding. Lights came on all over the room, black panels suddenly proven to be display screens scrolling text and displaying graphs and meters. All throughout the factory below, similar screens blazed into life as did certain of the structures, the net effect doubling the light level in the main room. Sari removed the stone; once again, this did not affect what she had awakened. _Probably I'd have to use it to shut things down again,_ she deduced.

Reactivating the plant would have to get Nevin's attention, Sari thought, which should draw him to find her. She doubted she'd have long to wait. She turned to the window, hoping to catch sight of the spy.

Instead, she saw the fiery detonation of a Foi technique from halfway across the factory chamber. Klaxons began to sound and red lights flashed. The display Sari had been previously reading now read, "Impact Detected Near Power Core. Security Screens Activated." The power core! The factory would demand energy to make itself function, and cutting off that supply would be as effective as destroying the control room.

Even though she could see the detonations as Nevin wielded his techniques against the column studded with blue lights that was apparently the power core, Sari had no idea if she could get through the maze to him in time. It wasn't likely.

Maybe, though, there was something else she could do. Frantically, she looked through the various displays and controls for something resembling a cyborg command link. After a minute's searching, she found what looked like one. She pressed the button and spoke into the audio pickup, "Destroy the intruder attacking the power core!"

The screen next to the link flashed a message: "Unable To Comply With Instructions--No Robot Identification Code Given."

"I don't _know_ what cyborgs there are," Sari growled. "Don't you have a list of codes?"

Dutifully, the screen changed. "Robots Currently Active: Code AZN6, Code AZN7, Code BLG3, Code..."

"Robot AZN6," Sari commanded, rethinking her orders as she did so that the cyborg would not accidentally treat Mercier as an enemy, "defend the power core from attack."

She quickly repeated the order to several other robots, since the first she'd picked might be on the far side of the factory or too weak to stop the Layan.

As it turned out, that didn't prove to be much of a worry.

~X X X~

Nevin cursed under his breath. The metal shields that had descended to protect the power core were proving stubbornly resistant to his techniques. He'd even tried the Orakian needler he'd forced himself to learn as a part of his cover, but it had been equally ineffective. Still, some of the shields were starting to crumple and break. Sooner or later, he was sure he'd get through. He only hoped he could do so before the Orakians reached him.

They did get to him, but not in the way he expected. The first robot was a two-legged orb with a mass of gangly, pincer-tipped arms. A second orb circled its upper "body," and a spark of light flashed from that orb, detonating at Nevin's feet and knocking him sprawling. Another robot, one that looked vaguely like a human with excessively bulky chest armor and a low, flat head, struck him a heavy blow with its fist. Tiny silver drill-shaped robots with what looked like large square fins tried to spear him with their rapidly spinning, pointed tips. Red-and-silver spiders attacked him with some kind of sonic vibration wave, a Gra variation, and then struck with bladed forelegs.

The spy tried to fight back, but it was utterly useless. The cyborgs tore him apart with relentless, mechanical efficiency.

~X X X~

Revenge, Sari decided, was a sour dish. The pleasure in watching the butcher of the innocents of Carin be destroyed on her orders was a bitter one. She couldn't help but think that there was no difference between using the cyborgs to kill and using a knife. Either way she'd made the decision to end the life of a human being. Would Orakio damn her for breaking the spirit if not the letter of his final command?

Either way, she decided, it didn't matter. She would fight on, take the step of bringing these ever-more-deadly war machines into the world. She was the queen, and she had a people to protect from the Layans. They'd forced the fight on the Landen-folk, restarted a cycle of violence that should have been gone forever; Sari would not let them have their way.

And if revenge for her mother, for Satera, for the people of Carin, for Marella and all the comrades who'd died or would die at her side was the only reward she would receive, then she would eat her fill of it.


	7. Desperately Seeking Cyborg

In his father's day, reflected Prince Ayn of Cille (_not_ Prince Ann of Silly), the passage between the worlds of Aquatica and Aridia had been a different place indeed. Years of long disuse had left it open to become a nesting ground for a variety of creatures, some small and harmless and some ferocious monsters. None of them was in evidence now, though; they'd been exterminated or driven into hiding by the robotic hordes that now inhabited the passage.

These cyborgs were not unlike the legions that had descended upon Ayn's homeland and its neighbor. The cities of Cille and Shusoran had been decimated by the robotic armies, their people forced to flee for their lives. Rumor said that they had gone to Aridia, ahead of Ayn, but the prince had no idea if he would find his parents safe among the refugees, or if they had merely fled from one group of attackers into the clawed metal hands of another.

It was lucky that thus far Ayn and his companions, the androids Wren and Mieu, had been attacked only by small, roving squads of cyborgs rather than organized armies. Four or five of the little green-and-yellow spider-mechs were little threat, even backed by a converted agricultural bot or two. Forty would have been a different story, even for skilled combatants like the three travelers.

_Thank Laya for that_, Ayn thought. Or perhaps it should be "thank Orakio"? The product of a marriage between a prince of one people and a princess of the other, he supposed he was entitled to call upon both. After all, he possessed the strange powers Layans called "techniques," but yet as a blood descendant of Orakio, Mieu and Wren served him as they had Orakio himself a thousand years ago.

"How far is it now?" he asked out loud.

"We are approximately two-thirds of the way through," Wren replied in his emotionless voice. "That is, presuming that the route is as it was eighteen years ago when we came this way with your father. Structural damage may have accrued, or obstructions been erected."

"I don't think we needed the disclaimer, Wren," Mieu groused. Unlike her companion, the red-haired female cyborg possessed a fully developed personality with a complete range of emotions, which occasionally included exasperation at Wren's inability to keep up with social niceties.

"I merely sought to provide accurate information," Wren said. If he'd had emotions, he would have sounded hurt.

"We'll have to discuss it later. Here comes another one!" Ayn cut in.

This new robot was roughly human-sized, but its shape was well out of proportion. A barrel-shaped torso with a flat head that sprouted from the upper body without an intervening neck sprouted long legs and short arms made of flexible coils. The arms ended in handlike grips apparently designed for grappling. Ayn took a defensive position, his fine-quality steel sword held with the point low in a two-handed grip. A quick attack, he'd learned, was often a recipe for disaster against an opponent of unknown capabilities. He waited for it to make its move, so he could react and strike out.

The robot's advance stopped about ten feet away from Ayn.

Then, it wiggled its arms up and down. The only thing the prince could compare it to was a bad imitation of someone dancing.

"What the--?"

"Get down, Ayn!" Mieu shouted, even as she was diving at him, grabbing his cape and trying to pull him to the ground. Trusting her judgment, he let her, and so as a result the stream of fire from the Foi weapon that popped out of the robot's belly passed harmlessly overhead.

Wren's gun rocked the enemy back in the next instant, and Mieu sprang up and finished ripping it into shreds.

"Thanks for saving me," Ayn said, getting to his feet. "What was that thing, though, and...um, what was that bit with the arms?"

"It is called a Seeker," Wren explained. "They were used during the Devastation War by the armies of Orakio."

"Their movements are designed to play upon human psychological weaknesses," Mieu said.

"You mean..."

"Their behavior, apparently pointless, is designed to induce confusion--or if you're not into Wren-speak, it's supposed to leave their enemies scratching their heads asking what the heck it's doing. Then they attack once their foe's guard is down."

Ayn blushed, remembering how completely he'd fallen for it.

"And here I thought it just looked Cille...er, silly."

~X X X~

_A/N: _Phantasy Star III_ gets a lot of flak for its monsters. Truthfully, they're pretty attractively designed critters, but their attack animations are just plain goofy more often than not. So I'm making fun of that. And as for Ayn's name...come on, admit it, that was how you read it, too, the first time you saw it!_


	8. Dragon's Gate

_A/N: Back in the day (meaning around eight years or so ago), Neilast was one of the more industrious members of the American Phantasy Star fandom. In addition to her own fanfic series, "Beyond Algo" (set some 2000 years in the future after _PSIV_), she was also a prolific writer of _Phantasy Star III_ fiction. In addition, she did quite a bit of examination of the game and picked up on a number of little details (for example, did you ever realize that even in the Adan/Aron generations where no one explicitly mentions it, Azura has been destroyed? The land bridge between Agoe/Shusoran and Cille will not appear just as in the Sean/Crys generations—meaning that the tides have been identically affected and the moon destroyed...), but also compiled a number of her personal fanon theories. One section, called the "Thea Theories," focuses on what Thea was doing during Nial's generation, how the heck Ryan winds up with the Twins' Ruby in Nial's generation (the short answer: he rescues Thea from Lensol Castle because Ayn wasn't around to do it), and what's up with the Dragon Knights anyway. It all makes fascinating reading for any fan of PSIII._

_Anyway, while most of Neilast's "Thea Theories" relate to Nial's generation, she did posit one aspect of that set of theories that relate to Ayn's generation, and I wrote a story about it. _

~X X X~

Matthias Rey would have been considered a fortunate man by many of his ancestors. He was the king of Lensol in southern Draconia, and it was his destiny to see the changing of an age. A thousand years after Holy Orakio had battled the dark witch Laya in the Devastation War, an army of cyborgs had emerged from the castle of Techna and swarmed throughout Draconia. These war robots had been far more advanced than those Lensol could produce, more advanced and more lethal.

Leading these cyborgs had been the one called Siren, a manlike cyborg with a chromed body and red hair. Some of Lensol's oldest legends mentioned Siren, speaking of him as an ally of or war-leader under Orakio. Siren had promised an end to the "Layan pestilence" once and for all, and from the power of his followers it seemed likely that he could do it.

In truth, King Matthias had never had much trouble with Layans, pestilential or otherwise. Draconia held only one major Layan settlement, the village of Endora, and its relationship with Lensol had been wary but never overtly hostile for generations. Lensol was larger and wealthier than the Layan town, and in addition Techna was also Orakian, though its folk largely held themselves aloof from the rest of Draconian society. Those were not odds likely to incite the Layans to mischief. On Lensol's side, there were the continuing reports of dragons near Endora and Cape Dragon Spine, legends that mentioned them as well. Hidden power, sleeping, was not a thing to be trifled with, and the kings of Lensol had not been foolish enough to tempt fate.

No, conflict with the Layans was not something King Matthias had ever sought, but he had it nonetheless. Siren had offered Lensol the chance to join the armies of Orakio, and the king had accepted. It would not have been wise to seem an _enemy_ of the armies of Orakio, at least not under the guns of Siren's Arachne, Stix, and Commsats.

Oddly, Siren had ignored Endora. Instead, his armies had swept outwards from Draconia to other worlds, leaving only roving patrols in their wake. Then, Siren had returned, bearing with him a girl, a Layan princess with bright green hair. He'd ousted Matthias and Lensol's court from the castle, imprisoned the girl in the dungeon, and filled the castle and its cellars with hordes of cyborgs. He then left once more, returned to wherever he called his headquarters.

There was one problem with cyborgs. While advanced models like Siren himself were self-willed and capable of acting on their own, simple military models required direction to act effectively. This was why King Matthias and the soldiers of Lensol were still under arms, ready to fight if an army came for the princess, but Siren did not trust the folk of Lensol well enough to let his robots take orders from them.

In essence, Lensol had become occupied territory.

The people sensed it, too. They hid in their houses, shrinking from the streets, coming out only to work or shop, then slipping back home or to huddle in the taverns.

Then the boy had come, a study in contradictions if there ever was one. He wore his pale cyan hair long, pulled back in a ponytail in the manner of a Layan, but he was escorted by two cyborgs of types as elite as Siren. Near the town gates he had been attacked by a patrol of Doomflies and Arachne. The folk of Lensol had watched the traveler defeat the attacking cyborgs wielding a sword like an Orakian knight, but after the fight he'd employed a technique to cure a Doomfly's poisonous attack, a power possessed only by Layans.

A contradiction, this one, and that was a dangerous thing in these troubled times. It meant a potential threat. The citizens of Lensol avoided him, other than the shopkeepers, who were desperate for the meseta he spent freely. They did not chat with him, however, dismissing his questions with taciturn grunts or denials.

The questions worried Matthias most of all. The traveler asked about a place called Satellite, which the Lensol-folk knew only from legends, and more pointedly about a girl named Thea. Although the king did not know the name of Siren's prisoner, he descriptions were far too close for the traveler to mean anyone else. He was, undoubtedly, a rescuer. Luckily, he did not choose to press the point, and he turned away from the closed castle gates without trying to force his way in. From hiding, Matthias watched the boy go, all the while cursing the fate that had reduced a once-proud people to skulking in the shadows.

He didn't know that he wasn't the only one watching Prince Ayn of Cille.

~X X X~

"I don't like it," Ayn said, staring into the crackling campfire. The blue moon, Azura, was bright overhead, illuminating the night with its peaceful, comforting glow. "That place just gives me the creeps."

"I'm with you," Mieu said, hugging her drawn-up knees to her chest. It was hard, sometimes, to remember that the red-haired woman was a cyborg, an artificial creation rather than a human being.

Conversely, it was all too easy for Ayn to keep that in mind concerning his second cyborg companion. Wren didn't even look human other than his head, and even that was studded by sensor arrays that seemed to grow out of his "flesh." Even more telling, though, was his lack of emotions. His intellect was extraordinary, superior even to Mieu's, but he lacked the female model's emotional capacity. It made him seem very cold, more like the machine he was than a person.

"If I am correctly interpreting your assessment, Prince Ayn, I must concur. The condition of the town of Lensol appears unnaturally hostile in comparison with those Orakian cultures we have previously encountered, although given the isolated nature of this world of Draconia it is possible that customs may have developed in different patterns."

Ayn shook his head.

"There's no question about it. This world is crawling with those powerful cyborgs. Something's wrong here."

"The models encountered thus far are familiar ones dating from the Devastation War."

"You can remember that far back?" Ayn asked, astonished.

"The memory of an android does not change over time."

"In the here and now, though, what are we going to do?" Mieu asked.

Ayn scowled. In his native kingdom of Cille as well as Thea's kingdom, Shusoran, there had been secret passages into the castle dungeons. This was how Ayn's parents had escaped the attack on their cities, fleeing through these passages while the castle was assaulted. Lensol, though, did not seem to have any such hidden entrances to its stronghold.

"We combed the town, looking for a way inside, but so far as any of us could see, the castle gates are the only way in. There's no way that the three of us could force our way inside."

"Do you propose to abandon our inquiries in Lensol?"

"We have to, for now. We'll keep on and get the lay of the land here in Draconia. Right now, we can't even be sure that what's wrong in Lensol has to do with Thea. If we do have to storm that castle somehow, I'd at least like to make sure that we're not wasting our efforts while Thea is somewhere else entirely."

He flipped a stick onto the fire.

"If she is there, though, then you can believe me, we'll be coming back."

What he didn't say, but which he felt, was that if she really was in Lensol's castle, he had no idea how he might get inside. It wasn't as if he could fly, after all.

~X X X~

Well away from the camp, a sinuous, serpentine form turned on two powerful hind legs. It had been too far away and too well-concealed for Ayn and his escorts to notice, but its inhumanly powerful hearing had allowed it to listen to every word of their conversation.

The outline of the beast shimmered, shrank in on itself, and resolved into the image of a dark-haired man with a thin mustache. Two three-foot fighting staves hung at his belt, marking him as a Layan warrior. The shift of form, however, had marked him as something else.

A Dragon Knight.

The dragons were once Layan champions during the Devastation War, to hear the legends tell it, no doubt a counter to elite cyborgs like Mieu and Wren. The need for such champions had ended long ago, but the power remained in their blood, passed on down from generation to generation.

Ryan Quisto thought over what he'd learned from observing this Prince Ayn. His thoughts about the young man, ironically, mirrored those of the Orakian king--Ayn was an unknown quantity, a Layan who fought like an Orakian and was accompanied by cyborgs that actually dated back to the War a thousand years ago. Yet, their mission appeared to be to rescue a Layan prisoner, at least to judge by how they talked among themselves.

Ryan had considered approaching the three travelers, but then decided against it. Trust was a valuable commodity, and Ayn hadn't earned it, not with Orakian death machines prowling the world. It was too bad, because Ryan did have one piece of valuable information. His own investigations had confirmed that there was a Layan princess, presumably this "Thea," held in Lensol's castle.

It was also too bad for another reason. Ayn and his companions were strong fighters, and would have made good allies. As a Layan warrior and a Dragon Knight, Ryan was _not_ going to let a Layan princess remain a captive of the Orakians. In his dragon shape, the castle walls would be no obstacle; he could fly right over them.

The best time to attack, Ryan had concluded, would be at night. Darkness would not inhibit the cyborgs overmuch, but it could have quite an effect on human guards, in visibility and in regard to the combat skills of a basically diurnal animal.

It wouldn't be easy, Ryan thought. The cyborgs were fierce opponents, and even as the dragon he was only one. Each day's delay, though, was one more day in which the princess might be killed or tortured, in which the object of her capture might be achieved.

Ryan sighed heavily. There was no point in putting it off any longer. He would act now. His body shimmered again, and the dragon launched into the air.

Flying, it took Ryan only minutes to cover the distance that Ayn had journeyed from Lensol since he'd left the city several hours ago. His keen eyes picked out the shadowed walls, where lights shining from inside houses and shops made pinpricks of illumination. He turned and banked down, descending towards the walled stronghold of the castle.

Buzzing angrily, four shapes rose up to meet him.

In that day and age, no one would have expected an attack by air. What Ryan did not know was that Siren was a relic of the Devastation War, when aerojets routinely were a part of the battles between Orakio and Laya's armies. He had ordered certain cyborgs to watch for and guard against an attack from above; he would not have thought his defenses complete without it.

The four attacking cyborgs were Doomflies, aptly-named creatures that looked a bit like a child's wind-up toy, right down to the "key" in their bellies that turned as their glassine wings moved. There was nothing whimsical, however, about the saberlike mouth blades that belonged more to a wasp than a fly.

The Dragon Knight opened his jaws and breathed out a stream of fire. The blast struck a Doomfly, destroying its wings. The cyborg plummeted, shattering on the stone of the castle. In response, the other three Doomflies broke formation, swarming around Ryan, attempting to use their numbers to their advantage.

Seeking to thin those numbers, Ryan pulled up above one and used his claws to sever the relatively fragile wings from its armored body. As the second cyborg fell, another one raked the dragon's side. He turned his serpentine neck and breathed again, the flaming assault blasting its target apart explosively. Then, he felt a stinging pain, and a coldness seemed to flow through his veins. As the numbness spread, Ryan located the last Doomfly and realized what had happened. Even as he turned to strike, a tube mounted just under its blades was retracting--a launcher for envenomed darts!

Ryan dove at the cyborg, catching it in his talons. Angered at the way it had caught him off-guard, he satisfied his petty revenge by not merely knocking it out of the air but punching his claws through the cyborg's steel plating and ripping out great chunks of circuitry so that it fell in pieces to the castle ground below.

Ryan was familiar with the poison that he had been exposed to; it was standard in Orakian cyborgs and a variation was employed by certain Layan monsters. It prevented the body from healing, both in the natural course of events and by regenerating medicines and healing techniques. If left untreated death would be inevitable as the body wore itself out, but its principal use was to stop in-battle healing such as with the Monomates Ryan's human form carried. If necessary, then, Ryan could press on with his rescue attempt.

The wiser course of action, though, was to fly back to Endora and have the poison treated, then start anew. There, he could also purchase poison antidotes to use in case he was attacked this way again, and gain the full benefit of his healing medicines.

His thoughts, however, were interrupted painfully by searing bolts of heat and light. With the Doomflies defeated, the cyborg defenders had switched to their second line of defense, namely a squad of Lazrbots manning the walls with their high-powered Foi cannons. The burning crimson beams sliced through the night sky, tracking Ryan's position. Though he dodged rapidly to throw off their aiming points as best he could, he took a hit to the belly, a second raking his hind leg, and a third punching a hole in his wing. In desperation he spiraled towards the ground, getting out of the shooting gallery that was the sky above Lensol Castle.

On the way down he took a fourth hit, which threw off his timing, making his landing a hard one. It had also thrown off his trajectory--he'd landed _inside_ the castle grounds. At least, he thought, the bots had stopped firing at him once he was out of the air.

Ryan knew there was only one way for him to escape now, and that was through the gates. He took his human shape back, feeling the wrenching pain of transformation while injured, and began to look for the gate release. Luckily, it did not take him long to identify the mechanism, a simple plate set into the wall with a red-handled lever. He saw no ropes or pulleys; the technology must have been similar to that used to create the Orakians' war machines.

Before he could reach for that lever, though, he heard a loud, angry-sounding bird call. He spun, hands dropping to the leather grips of his fighting staves, and saw a pack of Chirpbots glaring hostilely at him. This series of cyborgs was almost cute, designed to resemble the furry-feathered Chirper monsters, but there was nothing appealing about fighting them.

Two launched themselves forward at Ryan, pointed beaks and tiny talons both honed to the sharpness of a swordblade. Injured as he was, he still lashed out and caught one in mid-hop with his right-hand staff. A third Chirpbot opened its beak and spewed flames, its Foi weapon having less range than that of the Lazrbots but still being quite deadly.

Ryan dove to the grass and rolled forward, letting the flames pass overhead, then came out of his roll and thrust forward with a staff into the cyborg's mouth. It punched into the flame launcher, crushing it, stabbing into whatever circuitry lay beyond. A blow from his other staff knocked the bot free and left it twitching and smoking. The Dragon Knight winced as another cyborg's beak slashed across his wounded thigh, but he fought on until he stood, bloody and battered, above five piles of scrap metal.

Cautiously, he waited for the next threat, but none appeared. It seemed that there was no second line of defense. Could the grounds be so badly defended that there would be no reaction?

_Wait a moment. Where are the Orakians?_ Orakian cyborgs, like Layan monsters, needed to be directed by human leaders, and Ryan hadn't seen any so far. Perhaps there was no central command unifying the cyborgs, so each group only followed a limited set of orders, such as "attack anyone who enters a specified area."

Deciding there was no time to worry about it then, Ryan went over to the gate controls and threw up the lever. With a soft hum, the gate rose.

_Now, I just need to make it stay there. _It didn't do any good to get the gate open, after all, if the Orakians could just pull the lever and close it. He pointed at the gate controls and reached inside himself for the power that was the birthright of the Layan race. The Gra technique struck out with the power of gravitational force, causing the metal to twist and buckle, the lever itself to bend. Experimentally, he gave the lever a tug. It didn't so much as budge.

"Perfect," he said, the word coming out more like a growl. He staggered out through the gate, then forced his body to transform once more and launched himself into the air. As he'd suspected, no Lazrbot fire targeted him; they'd been ordered to defend the air over the castle only, not the town and surrounding countryside. His entire body throbbed with pain, and his wounded wing seemed to be begging him to land, but Ryan pressed on. He _had_ to get to Endora to have the poison cured, or else his wounds would finish him in a few days. He had no choice _but_ to keep flying.

And what then, he wondered? Battles with only three groups of robots had left him nearly incapacitated, and he hadn't even destroyed one of the groups. The truth was obvious; alone, he had little chance of rescuing the imprisoned princess.

On the other hand, there was Ayn and his two cyborgs. With the gate now open, they could make a try. Working as a team they might succeed where Ryan had failed. He would have to wait for them, of course, to see what they'd do once they'd gotten her out. If their intentions were hostile he would have to act--but even then, it would be easier to rescue a girl from three individuals tired from combat than from a castle full of cyborgs. And, if Ayn's group failed, perhaps they would inflict enough damage on the enemy that a healed and fully-equipped Ryan could finish the job.

Long before the sun rose, he was already planning what to say to them.

~X X X~

King Matthias looked at the gate yawning open. Like the rest of the Lensol-folk, he'd been barricaded inside, weapons at the ready, at the sounds of battle, but whomever had attacked the castle did not carry the fight to the town. Matthias was thankful; he had no idea how his troops could handle anything capable of fighting Siren's war machines.

When the fighting had grown silent, Lensol's soldiers emerged, blades and needlers at the ready, and advanced on the now-open gates. Matthias lead the way through, seeing the wreckage of the Chirpbot patrol. He also saw blood spattered on the ground. A human had been there, probably a Layan attacker.

"They've disabled the gate controls, whomever they were," a soldier said.

"Just the external controls, or did they tamper with the mechanism itself?"

The soldier looked things over.

"I can't be sure, but it looks like just the controls."

"I see."

It was true that in the centuries since Orakio and Laya had lived, their people had lost much of the knowledge of how the ancient technologies worked. The Lensol-folk could operate their cyborg factory, for example, but had no idea how to alter it or to attempt to improve on the preprogrammed designs.

Even the best-made equipment, however, would inevitably suffer damage over the course of centuries, and while the men and women of Lensol did not have the necessary repair skills they did have maintenance cyborgs which did possess them. Matthias was sure that one of those robots could have the gate controls operable in no more than an hour's time.

"Your Majesty, shall I summon a repair cyborg?" asked the soldier.

Matthias looked up at the castle, at a citadel which was no longer a haven for his people, then turned back to Lensol. He saw a town in which its citizens, even its king, cowered in fear inside their homes, unable to do anything other than hide while world-shaking events played out around them.

He was sick of it.

"No," he stated. "If Siren doesn't want us to interfere with castle business, then we won't. Let's go."

"But, your Majesty, if we don't repair the gate, then--"

"Quite. Come along; we don't want to be trespassing on castle grounds. As Siren made quite plain, we have no business here."

~X X X~

_A/N: "Quisto" is the Japanese-version name of the fellow in Endora who opens the gate of Lensol Castle. Since Ryan doesn't have a last name in the English game, and since I have no idea what his Japanese-game last name is, I used that as a (very) little in-joke._


	9. In Your Eyes I Find a Mirror

_A/N: The battle between Ayn's party and Sari doesn't make much sense in-game. It's a clear case of the lack of text space crippling the story, but there are, nonetheless, all kinds of plot holes. Why does Sari fight Ayn, then suddenly change sides once the fight is over? And why does she agree to run off to Draconia while her kingdom is at war? And just why is she in the dungeon of her castle anyway instead of, well, in the throne room? This story follows up on "Steel and Stone" and details Sari and Ayn's first meeting in considerably greater detail._

_The reference to Mieu's "Res" ability as "Medical Power" is a clear shout-out to Demi's Medical Power ability from _Phantasy Star IV, _as well as an obvious continuation of my ongoing theory that the androids' "techniques" are in fact special weapon abilities._

~X X X~

"There are four of them, my lady Queen," Kyle Morin told Sari, the seventeen-year-old queen of Landen. Kyle was technically ranked as a captain in Landen's army, but he saw little battlefield duty; his billet was Military Intelligence, and he acted as liaison between that force and the palace.

Ever since Landen had acquired new cyborgs, designs from the ancient days of the Devastation War between Laya and Orakio, the war with Lune had reached a stalemate. The first strikes by the new robots had broken Lune's scattered military and forced his army back across the river between Landen and what had been the kingdom of Satera. The Layan, however, had acted like the skilled general that legend called him, and stiffened his resolve, treating the Orakian defenders like a foe to be confronted than vermin to be wiped out. Battles were fought, offensives tried by both sides, but for nearly six months the western half of the world had belonged to Lune and the eastern half to Landen.

More than once, Layan spies had attempted to sabotage the war effort, but the efforts of Kyle's division and, on at least one occasion, Sari herself, had foiled them.

"Four? They're sending so many?"

"Yes, but this time something seems...wrong. There's something we don't know about them."

"Beautiful," Sari growled sarcastically. "I hate riddles." She tugged absently on her brown ponytail, a sure sign of frustration to those who knew her well. "What has you so puzzled?"

"Their openness. They've just walked into Ilan and Yaata and asked about you and the Power Topaz, immediately marking themselves as outsiders."

"That's about the last thing I'd expect from spies."

"Quite. Are you aware of the foreign cyborgs that have entered Landen?"

Sari nodded.

"Yes; I've been told. They're of similar models to our new robots but ignore orders from us. They aren't attacking any Landen-folk or our cyborgs, though, which makes them a secondary problem at worst compared to Lune."

Kyle brushed a wisp of electric pink hair out of his eyes.

"Well, we think that we've identified what these cyborgs are after. Our observers have repeatedly witnessed them attacking the Layans."

"And the outlanders are beating them?"

The spy made a face.

"Handily. They're excellent small-unit fighters. Which leads me to another problem."

"Oh?"

"Well, one of them, a female, is obviously a Layan. She uses techniques and fights with slicers just as the women in Lune's forces do. Another one, a man, also appears to have Layan powers, but he wields a sword!"

Sari pursed her lips.

"I've never heard of a Layan swordsman--though a Layan spy would likely use Orakian weapons if he didn't want to give himself away."

"But to the extent of becoming a master? Where would he receive the training?"

Sari, who was quite possibly the best fighter in all of Landen, appreciated the point.

"No, that wouldn't be easy."

"Then, there are the other two, a red-haired woman and a dark-haired man. The woman uses claws in battle, and the man...he wears armor that covers his entire body except his face and the top of his head, and he fights with what looks like some kind of cyborg cannon unit, only carried externally like a needler!"

"So who are they, then?"

"I don't know, but we can be sure of only two things: they want the Power Topaz, and they arrived in Landen this morning."

Sari sighed heavily.

"Which means they'll be coming here to see me eventually. All right, Kyle, order the gate closed."

"What?"

"From what you've said, they're either not Lune's spies or they're very crafty, but they're definitely after the Power Topaz." That stone was the most important treasure in Landen. It would be very difficult for Lune's spies to sabotage the Orakian war effort, but with the Topaz a single, daring individual might shut down Landen's cyborg production--and since the Power Topaz was the keystone for the factory, if the spy got away it couldn't be restarted.

Beyond that, it was also the only thing Sari had left of her mother, the late Queen Lena of Satera. When Sari had first learned of the practical uses of the golden jewel, it had been as if Lena's hand had reached out from the other side to aid her daughter. She wasn't going to let anyone take the Power Topaz away.

"Make sure the secret entrance to the dungeons from the technique shop is left open and unguarded. We'll invite them in that way."

"Why there?"

"They want the Topaz, and we can't give it up. That sounds like a recipe for a fight. If it comes to that, I don't want it to take place in the town, or--if we welcome them in--in a throne hall packed with spectators. No, instead we'll let them sneak in. I'll throw a few cyborg patrols in their way to gauge their reactions and should worst come to worst, tire them out, eat into their strength. I'll confront them personally beneath the throne room."

"But...what if things go wrong there?"

Sari smiled wolfishly.

"We'll have two divisions of cyborgs here in the castle. One will descend the stairs outside once they pass, cutting off their retreat back to town. The other will wait in the throne room, ready for me to call. These four may be good, but they can't handle a hundred frontline war robots. At least, not all at once."

~X X X~

Prince Ayn of Cille sighed as he stood over the sparking remains of a group of Minimechs.

"Even here," he complained, "even here in Landen we're attacked by cyborgs!"

"Logically," observed Wren, "it may be noted that we are intruders in a secure area of the castle." Wren was the armored man noted by Kyle, but in truth he was not a man at all. He was a Searren386 Wren-type android equipped with combat and technical systems operation/maintenance skill packages. His fellow android, the redheaded Mieu, was strictly a combat machine but had an even more advanced personality, one equipped with human emotions.

Ayn sighed again.

"Yeah, but that's another thing. Why lock the gates against us? It's lucky I remembered my father telling me about the secret passage into the dungeon or we wouldn't have gotten this far."

Ayn's father was King (in exile) Rhys of Cille, but Rhys had been born Prince of Landen. Rhys had fallen in love with a mysterious girl named Maia, and had embarked on a great quest to rescue her, only to learn that she was actually a Layan princess from the world of Aquatica. Love had triumphed over the ancient Orakian-Layan enmity, and Rhys had abdicated the throne of Landen to marry Maia.

"If they would only listen," Ayn said, somewhat petulantly. He was only a teenager, after all, and had the fate of two kingdoms riding on his shoulders. "I'm sure if we explained things we could work something out, but instead here we are, creeping through a dungeon, hacking our way through a horde of cyborgs."

"Unless Landen's thrown in with whomever attacked Shusoran and Cille," suggested the fourth member of their party, "the way Lensol did. The Landen-folk are Orakians, after all."

Thea Ra Mira, Princess of Shusoran, knew well about those who aided and abetted the cyborgs' mysterious master. In the attack on Shusoran and Cille, she had been kidnapped and taken to Lensol in Draconia. Ayn, Mieu, and Wren had been able to rescue her, luckily enough, and use her Twins' Ruby to journey to Landen in search of the Power Topaz.

"I won't believe that, Thea. These are my father's people. They wouldn't help destroy our lands."

"The people of Landen do exhibit behavior quite different from those of Lensol," Wren said. "In Lensol the population hid behind closed doors, but the Landen-folk are quite willing to talk and even exchange information. Only official channels appear to be denied to us."

"Thanks, Wren," Ayn said. "You can believe, though, that I'm going to get an answer to what's going on, even if we have to bludgeon our way in through every cyborg in Landen."

It wasn't much longer before they reached what had to be the end of the dungeon maze. In a small room they encountered the first human they'd seen in the castle. It was a young woman with brown hair, loose pants of the same hue, and a white blouse. Her face was attractive enough, but the look on it was sour and harsh. She held steel knives in both her hands, and her grip looked like she knew how to use them.

Cyborgs moved into position to defend her. Three were Commsats, which Ayn had encountered before, thin-bodied robots with the capacity to launch poisoned darts. The others resembled the ubiquitous Arachnes, but these spiders were red and metallic--blood and chrome--instead of green, black, and yellow. Their forelegs ended in sharp, bladed spikes and no doubt they were equipped with the same kind of Gra weapon as their emerald cousins to crush multiple opponents at range with sonic vibrations.

It would not be an easy fight, Ayn thought.

"My name is Sari, Queen of Landen," the woman said. "You've chosen an interesting way to come and see me."

"There was no other option," Ayn replied. "You saw to that; your soldiers wouldn't so much as take a message from us. We're here now, though, and we need to talk."

"I already know what you want, Layan! You've come for the Power Topaz, but you won't get it without a fight!"

The attack was instantaneous, the cyborgs charging with Sari's challenge. Mieu was the fastest; she lashed out at one of the Commsats with her claws, reducing it to junk metal. Thea hurled her slicers; the throwing blades spun in a wide arc, slashing the three spider-bots, then returned to her hands. The attack did relatively little damage, though; this version was both better-armored and tougher than the common Arachne.

Then the other side counterattacked. One after another, the three spiders fired their **Gra **weapons, a cone of sound engulfing the four companions with each shot. Vibrations sought to rip apart flesh, shatter bone, and crush metal; armor was no protection against this kind of attack.

The humans, especially, were left stunned by the rapid-fire Gras, and Sari used that when she made her move. A knife flicked out, knocking one of the slicers from Thea's grip, and then her right hand drove through the girl's defenses, crashing into her face. Thea reeked back, and this opened up enough distance between them for Sari to pivot into a rising spin kick. Her foot connected with the side of Thea's head, and the Layan princess was knocked senseless onto the stone floor.

_Thank Orakio she at least follows the Law,_ Ayn thought as he managed to get his sword up to block Sari's whirlwind attack. Orakio's Law and Laya's Law both forbade the killing of other humans, and while the Orakians used cyborgs and the Layans used monsters to do their killing for them, no honorable member of either race would take a life with their own hands. It was fortunate that Sari was honorable; she could have just as easily used her knives on Thea instead of her hands and feet.

Ayn dimly was aware of the low-throated boom of Wren's cannon sending an explosive round into one of the spiders, finishing it of, and of the squeal of Mieu's claws cutting into another robot, but he had to reserve most of his attention for Sari. She was a brilliant fighter, faster than he was, almost as strong, and with conditioning so superb that she barely seemed affected by her own exertions, much like Wren and Mieu. Most of her attacks he was able to parry, and his armor stopped more, but now and again Sari found the chinks in Ayn's protection, wearing him down with minor wounds, and once she gave him a long, painful slash along his left arm that slightly hampered his two-handed fighting style.

In the end, it was equipment rather than skill that saved the battle for Ayn. He'd seized an opportunity to take a long, sweeping cut at Sari and she'd gotten her knives up, crossed, in what Ayn realized was a catch-parry that would allow her to twist the sword from the prince's grip. However, Ayn's sword was a technological artifact from the Devastation War which projected an edge of pure force while Sari's knives were common steel. One of the blades snapped at the hilt and Ayn's sword crashed with stunning force into the queen's chestplate. She staggered, and he used the flat of the blade to knock her down. Ayn's boot came down on her wrist, and the point of the sword leveled at her face in an obvious though toothless (because he wouldn't have acted on it) threat.

Wren and Mieu, meanwhile, had managed to finish off the remaining cyborgs and Mieu was using her various medical abilities to repair the damage inflicted to human and mechanical companions alike. A surge of relief passed through Ayn as she used her Res Medical Power on him.

"Thanks, Mieu. Is Thea all right?"

"She will be in a moment."

"Now, as for you," he said to Sari, "you're going to hear us out whether you want to or not. We've come much too far with too much at stake to give up just because the government of Landen is in a collective fit of pique!"

"I suppose you think your father could do a better job?"

"I'm sure of it! Wait--you know who I am?"

"I know _what_ you are. I recognized Wren and Mieu from my mother's stories. You're the son of the traitor, Rhys."

_"Traitor!?"_

Sari growled and yanked her arm free. Ayn stepped back, ready to continue the fight, but Sari only slammed the knife back in its sheath.

"What would you call it?" she said viciously. "He up and runs off, leaving his homeland without an heir, breaking his engagement to my mother, all to marry some Layan from another world!"

"He had his parents' blessing to marry Mother!" Ayn protested. "Besides, he wasn't really engaged to Lena; it was only a political alliance proposed from childhood."

"Exactly. So, when his parents died, instead of a united Landen and Satera ruled by Rhys and Lena, Landen had an ineffectual regency of power-hungry nobles. They were caught up in their little games when Lune invaded and Satera was crushed."

"Lune?" Ayn said.

"I know that name!" Thea chimed in. She'd regained her senses thanks to Mieu's ministrations, but was still a bit woozy. "He was a great hero of the Devastation War a thousand years ago, one of Laya's generals."

Sari shot her an angry look.

"I should have expected that from a _Layan_. Your 'hero' has invaded Landen with an army of monsters. Satera has been reduced to rubble. Most of its people are dead. _My mother is dead. _The western half of this world is in Lune's hands, and it's been all we can do to keep him out of the eastern half."

Ayn put away his sword.

"Then it sounds like you know what we're feeling, Sari," he said softly. "An army of robots attacked Cille and Shusoran, the Layan kingdoms of Aquatica. The survivors--what few there are of them--are hiding in a cave in Aridia. Lyle, who helped your mother and my father long ago, was badly wounded and may die. Lyle is Thea's father." He nodded at the green-haired girl, identifying her for Sari.

For a moment, Ayn felt a hot spike of jealousy. Sari may have lost Satera and Lena, but at least Landen and its people were alive and doing well, staving off the attacks of this Lune. Cille and Shusoran were gone, and Ayn had no home.

Then he put the feeling aside. After all, he also had one thing Sari lacked: both Rhys and Maia were alive and well, and no castle or city was equal to the worth of loved ones. Of family.

"Why do you want the Power Topaz?" Sari asked. There was more softness in her voice now, the tales of their mutual losses having blunted the anger.

"We're chasing a legend," Ayn said, "a land of eternal peace called Satellite."

"Eternal peace?" the queen said. "That sounds like a fairy tale, all right."

"No," Thea said urgently, "we've found clues! It's said that we can get there from Techna in the world of Draconia."

"Draconia? Where's that?"

"It's a world east of Aridia and southeast of Aquatica," Ayn explained. "We were told that we need the Power Topaz to get to Satellite. It's got to be some kind of keystone, we think, to open another passage."

"It could be," Sari said. "At least, we've found uses for it here."

"We have to have it. The people of Cille and Shusoran can't survive where they are now. They need a new home," Ayn urged. "That's why we've come all this way."

He stared into Sari's dark eyes, wondering if through the anger, he could make her see.

~X X X~

Sari had no love for Cille and Shusoran, and if the betrayer Rhys was suffering she was glad of it. Rhys's whelp, though, was another matter. The pain of losing a home was plain on his face when he spoke of what had happened, and Sari knew that pain all too well.

She trusted him, of course. It was just possible that the Layans of Cille and Shusoran could have allied with Lune and sent Ayn as a spy to steal the Power Topaz, but never that the androids Mieu and Wren would have betrayed the Orakians so completely.

Then an idea struck her. Ayn wanted to take the Power Topaz to a whole different world, one far from Landen. What's more, this world was apparently overrun by cyborgs like those that were pursuing Ayn--cyborgs exceptionally hostile to Layans like Lune...

In truth, she couldn't think of a better place to put the Power Topaz so Lune couldn't get his hands on it.

She could help protect another race of refugees, as she had defended the Saterans here in Landen.

And, she might well have a chance to catch up with the man who should have been _her_ father instead of Ayn's, who'd run out on his own people, and let him know exactly what he owed to Landen and Satera.

"All right, Ayn. You can take the Power Topaz, but I'm coming along to guard it!"


End file.
